Run
by Fasnacht
Summary: Sam says in book 1 that Wyatt won an argument about moving to San Francisco because she was 11 when she was hurt. What if she'd been 16? What if Jake had done what we all wished he'd been able to do at the time? Run attempts to answer those questions, and deal with an interpretation of the possible medical consequences. Songfic. Angst like woah to start.
1. Run

_There's a shortcut to the highway out of town_

_Why don't you take it?_

_Don't let that speed limit slow you down_

_Go on and break it. _

_Baby run, cut a path across the blue skies_

_Straight in a straight line_

_You can't get here fast enough._

_Find a truck and fire it up_

_Lean on the gas and off the clutch_

_Leave Dallas in the dust_

_I need you in a rush_

_So baby run_

-_Run_, George Strait

Jake Ely had borne enough. The sun was mocking him, again. The morning had dawned terrifyingly bright, contrasting his mood and the lack of sleep he was operating under. He'd elected to move bales alone. Jake just wanted to be alone. It didn't feel right to be around people. He needed to be alone. People always wanted to talk about it, pretend they understood. Those people attempted to pat his shoulder, and nod, like they got it, and acted like they wanted to understand more, when really, all they wanted were details, to exploit his misery for their own benefit, so they could feel involved in something they knew nothing about.

Worse yet were the people who were so cheerful that he wanted to punch them, so as to force them to feel a fraction of what he felt and ask them how they could smile, then. Would they man enough, then, when he couldn't be? Those people made him angry, whereas the former made him sick. They threw around words like silver linings, and optimistic, and time healing all wounds, and finally, he'd stormed out of the room after one time too many. He felt like, the one person who could possibly understand, had shut him out, but what was he to say? He simply repeated, "Leave me alone." over and over, like a mantra, like a prayer, hoping that the emotions swirling inside him would heed his words.

His father had just nodded and left him to moving bales. There were more important things to do, but mindless work had its advantages. A thought came to him as the old radio began to play a song after a commercial break. The song began as he was moving the bales of hay, and he realized as he was lifting one bale that he had had enough. He paused, dropping the bale with a heavy thump as the twine slipped from his gloves, as he realized another two things.

His gaze flew to his faithful blue Scout, and his hand flew to his pocket, feeling his wallet with his driver's lisece tucked inside. His gaze flew to the ten acre, and then to the radio that was playing into the yard. In a moment of breathless certainty, Jake knew what he had to do. George Strait was right, even as the song made him want to shut off the radio and scream. Each note hit him like a punch. It made his throat feel raw, and the heart that hurt so badly beat in double time. Sam loved George Strait, blasting his music all their lives, during dinners he now couldn't eat, whispering lyrics during timeless moments on the porch swing that now felt like eons.

The song brought back so memories. He could hear her screaming, "Come back, Jake! Don't run away!" She had called after him so often, with laughing eyes and bouncing braids unavailing, and he had run from her as often as he had allowed her to catch up. The ghosts from his childhood swirled, bringing back moments that he remembered with every bit of his soul, making him feel light headed as years of memories faded, only to leave him cold, cold in the bright sun of summer in Nevada.

With that chill came new memories, one that haunted him, no matter how fast he tried to fend it off. He could hear Sam screaming again, screaming in pain, screaming his name, as though he could help her, save her. It chilled his blood, turned his heart inside out, as he stood, frozen. Jake would have given anything, anything, to do that, and he couldn't. No, his mind corrected viciously, he _hadn't_. He still wondered, what if he had done things differently? Would she be here? Would his world be normal? He had no real way of knowing if she was truly safe, truly happy. He had failed the one person God had given him. He had failed her, and in failing her, he had failed everything that mattered.

He had no way of truly knowing how much she felt, or what was going through her mind about it, if anything. Jake was so tired of this limbo, this unknown, that caused him to hate everyone and everything half of the time, and withdraw into his soul the other half. Tears he tried to hide sprang to his eyes. He was so tired of crying. People expected him to not cry. He knew they could see the redness of his eyes, see the cracked skin of his lips, but...he tried so hard to hide it. He had no right to cry. Sometimes, he just wanted to crawl inside himself, and never come out, never. Witch was the only person who seemed to understand his sadness, and sometimes, he talked to her, but mostly, when he could come up with something to express, it was a simple prayer, as if by calling on God, he would understand.

God, he prayed, God. God. No. No. Not again. His mind was spinning, swirling back to the moments he hid in the dark of night, when he sobbed, reaching out to touch her only to wake and find her gone. He knew that his whole family knew, but every time someone had come to shake him away, or tried to hug him, he'd reacted poorly. Finally, after seeing the fatigue in Quinn's eyes, he'd grabbed his pillow and roamed three doors down the hall, to the guest room that had somehow become Sam's over the years. Some of her myriad of 4-H ribbons were above the dresser, a horse poster was pasted above the bed, and the sheets also had horses on them.

When he climbed into her bed, he could smell the faint traces of Mane n' Tail underneath the mint conditioner she used. He sobbed himself to sleep, that night, again, after he'd begged God for some sign, some help, something, anything, as he tortured himself with her fading sent. That scent soon became the only thing that kept him going. One day, though, it was gone, completely. He had prayed for death that night, begged God that if he'd had any Mercy, He would get Jake out of the hell his life had become. The song, he realized, was his sign. He'd prayed for one, something to get him through, some way of making the world seem less like the living hell it had become. The song had provided it.

Jake's stomach rolled. A bird called, shrilly, and forced his mind back to the present. He blew out a breath, looked down at the bale, looked at his shaking hands, looked at his truck, and back again. He'd made up his mind. With that, he walked inside, ignoring the bale, uncaring that his father would get him for it, escaping the desert heat to speak to his mother.

"Mama," he began softly, his voice rusty from disuse, mind elsewhere, "You heard from Sam today?"

His mother looked up from the lesson plans she was making and blinked knowingly, "No, but..." she continued, "it's only ten here. Sleep is good medicine, honey." He tensed. Why was she telling him things he knew, better than she did? Why did that happen so much, now? She added, "She needs sleep, and so do you."

Jake knew this, even as he couldn't look at his mother, who was sitting in Sam's chair. He'd drug that into the kitchen, barely resisting the urge to throw it off the porch and watch the wood splinter into shards, being that he couldn't eat, not if her chair was there, empty, mocking the hollow spot in his life. And yet, his mother continued to try and act like she knew best, like nothing had happened, like it was okay to sit in Sam's chair. Mom knew that was her chair, that it had been for years, since Sam had put stickers all over the spokes, and Mom had handed them a can of goo-b-gone, and told them to have at it. The residue had never quite faded completely. What if Sam came home, only to find her chair was being sat in? He heaved a breath at the thought, know it was impossible, and shifted slightly, anger at the woman who had given him life spinning in his chest, peppering his taste buds.

It wasn't as if his mother had nightmares that kept her awake, or night terrors that left him to wake in abject horror, reaching out, never quite making contact with the woman his dream. The dreams started out so peacefully, like a Norman Rockwell print. Sam would be there, and then, they're be peace, only for fleeting moments, when suddenly, the color would fade, and his dreams would turn black as night. He was so tired of waking up, screaming her name, tasting salt from tears and blood from where he'd bitten his lip. Since Wyatt had sent Sam to San Fransisco to recover after her accident not two months ago, Jake had slept very little, and spoken even less, except when he spoke to Sam.

He didn't give a flying care for anything anyone had to say. Darrell came around, but after a few hours of sitting in silence, he'd left, too. His attempts at humor had fallen flat, and Jake had tried, but ended up staring at the wall. Jen had been around, too, sometimes, though their company was stilted because Sam wasn't there. She left, too, murmuring something softly as he'd flinched away from her touch. So he didn't talk to them, if he could help it. He had nothing to say, to anyone.

But Sam needed him to talk, needed to hear him. So he would talk to her, trying to hide the strain in his voice that he couldn't tramp away, when he heard the pain in her voice, the weakness that dulled the steel in her tones. Mostly, when he called her at the rehab center, he'd read to her, the literature crossing the miles. They were in no position to discuss anything, but his high school diploma proved he could read, and so he did. He read all the novels they'd ever talked about, ignoring the anger that speared through him when he read about the happiness of fake people, when real ones were suffering like Sam was, and the crushing sorrow that ripped through him at the slightest turn of phrase.

_If you've watched as the heart of a child breaks in two,_  
_Then you've seen a picture of me without you. _

_Me Without You_, George Jones

Max looked at her son, a pale shadow of the man he'd been becoming. Her heart was breaking for each of them. When he went back to college in the fall for his second year, she knew that people would wonder if he'd taken up drinking or drugs. In fact, the opposite was true. Every high had gone out of his life, every bright spot, and Max felt sorrow. She'd not realized how much, to what degree, Sam and Jake were enmeshed, and she felt a loss, because she knew, somehow, that Sam was the most important person in her son's life. Maybe, she always had been. Who knew, thinking back, that she'd only had three years to be the center of her son's world? But such thoughts were silly, she knew, because Sam was the daughter she'd never had. Sam filled a part of Max's heart that none of her sons had ever touched, and she bled inside for her little girl. Max knew Sam and Jake were giving off misery like the radio was playing music. It came off them in waves, pulses like light and radio waves, and there was nothing anyone could do.

Jake didn't know his mother was thinking any of this. He figured, in his own mind, that he was hiding his pain well. "Mom, uh." He glanced at the door, clearing his throat, trying to talk around was huge frog that had moved in weeks ago, "I'm going out. Don't worry if you don't hear from me for a bit." Jake was determined.

"Sure!" Max toned it down though she was jumping up down inside at some semblance of normalcy returning to her son's life, "Oh, of course. Have fun. Going to see Darrell?" If there was one thing Max liked Darrell for, it was his ability to make her son laugh. He needed to laugh. Jake needed to cry, too, but he hadn't done that since the night Luke had been forced to tell him that Sam wasn't coming home. After a moment of absolute stillness, Max still remembered the look that had crossed Jake's expressive eyes, and in that second, she realized that the light had gone out of them. It went out suddenly, like a candle behind them had been blown out. After a moment, he'd inhaled, like it physically hurt him to do so, and tried to speak, but fell silent, unable to find the words. After another second, his face had crumpled.

Then, and it hurt Max to think of these moments, Jake had cried, violent sobs wracking his frame, and smashed in a wall, bloodying his fist in the process. Quinn had been the one to wrap his arms around his younger brother as he'd cried, the unbreakable bonds of brotherhood coming to the fore, promising his brother it would be okay, as though Jake was upset about something Quin could fix. Quinn had hugged him, letting blood and snot dry on his clothes, half hugging Jake, half holding him down as he cried himself hoarse, begging his brother to be let up, let go.

No one had said anything about the damage, knowing his reaction could have been worse. In fact, Luke had expected worse, to be honest, and had taken Jake's keys, both to the car and to the gunsafe. He had refused to take Jake's saddle, though Max had pushed for it. It was pointless. Jake didn't need one to ride, though its absence from the rack would have made Max feel better. Luke hesitated, saying there was a fine line between protecting their son, who was a grown man, and destroying his trust in them. Max had thrown her hands in the air, screaming that his trust made no difference at this point. Couldn't Luke see, she'd begged at the time, that their son, their baby, was literally fading away in front of them? A puff of wind would blow him over, she'd asserted, thinking of his rapidly diminishing strength. She'd asked if they should get him help, but even she knew that he was grieving a loss so profound, she would never be able to understand it. Luke had swallowed, hard, but stood firm, even as she sobbed in his arms. In the end, it made no difference, and for that, Max was glad. No one was sure what he'd do, if he'd go after the horse, drive off, or do something much worse. When Max had gone to check on him in the morning, the wall had been patched, and Jake refused to talk about it.

From then on Jake thrown himself with listless abandon into work at Three Ponies. He'd refused to go to River Bend, and no one had the heart to force it. He spoke occasionally to Jen, but did even less socialization than before the accident. Jake was closing in on himself, his soul huddling around its torment, as though it would make his world normal again.

Max's train of thought ended, and she began to reply to Jake, but he had already gone up the stairs. Max was just glad to see that he was finally moving around. She knew he missed Sam, but Wyatt could not be swayed. Things were as they had to be, and the two friends whose lives were so melded, were kept apart, though Luke had paid the increasing phone bills with only a smile.

In his room, Jake tried to be decisive. He moved to his closet, and pulled down his duffel bag from the shelf, shoving aside some records and a picture frame of a photo he couldn't bear to look at. The photo tumbled to the floor of his closet, and he bent to pick it up, sighing, fighting the thrum of nausea that rolled through him when he saw its contents. He opened the duffel bag after a second of standing in silence, and dumped his track stuff on the bed, hating that he could run. He moved to his dresser and grabbed some clean laundry. In the bag, he he threw several shirts and jeans, as if by some imaginary force. He moved quickly to his bathroom, the one he no longer had to share with three of his brothers, and took his toothbrush, and whatever he might need from the vanity, even though why he was doing this wasn't even clear. His heart was pounding, but he was calm as five books made their way into his bag. He spun around in his room, with one last look and snatched up his pillow and a book, and jammed them into the top of the bag, pulling the zipper with a air of finality. His mind was made up. He picked up his cell phone, slipped it into his pocket along with his wallet, and left the house through the front door, avoiding his mother in the kitchen.

_Searchin' for shelter again and again_

_Against the wind_

_A little something against the wind_

_I found myself seeking shelter against the wind_

_Against the Wind_, Bob Seger

Out in his Scout, Jake turned on the radio, found some Bob Seger, and pointed his truck West.

Thinking back, he recalled the day Wyatt had informed his parents that Sam would be staying in San Fransisco. The task of passing this information to Jake had fallen to them. At the time, Jake had not slept in days. He woke up crying more times than he could count. He hated being around people, hated the sympathy, the pity. He hated the judgement, the assumptions about the situation. He hated that people would ask him for details, while others pretended nothing had happened. He saw the looks, knew what people must think, but he didn't care. All he knew was that he could barely eck through a day, let alone a night.

A few weeks ago, maybe two, maybe three, he couldn't recall, the days were endless and meaningless anymore, he'd come home after a long day of feeling Sam's empty spots in their world, their life together. His food had remained untouched at breakfast and lunch, and so he'd come to the house to eat something, mostly so Mom would stop bugging him about it, and because he'd started seeing spots in front of his eyes as he rode Witch. He couldn't go to River Bend anymore, no matter how many times Wyatt called and asked. After a time, he stopped calling, and Jake felt a perverse sense of satisfaction at that. Just riding in the direction of River Bend made him angry, because he kept expecting to see Sam somewhere along the way. He heard her voice everywhere, but he stopped short as he came inside that day. His father had been inside, a rare occurence. His stomach had dropped instantly. This scene, or one like it, had played out in his nightmares for weeks. He knew what was coming, even as he spoke.

"Dad?" He was scared. Something had happened. He could feel it building inside of him, the fear, the utter helplessness. His mind thought the worst. She had died, something had gone wrong with her heart, or her lungs, and she...She had died. Died. And there was nothing to do, nothing to stop it.

"Jake. Let's go for a ride." Luke offered.

"If...there's something wrong, just tell me." Jake dropped into a seat, bonelessly, with a thud that reverberated in his memory. "What happened?"

"Wyatt stopped by." Luke directed a look of compassion at his son, as he spoke softly, "Sammy is going to be staying in San Fransisco, with Susan."

His thoughts could go no further into that awful day or in the days that followed, because his mind revolted and a semi was trying to pass his faithful Scout. Jake had broken out into a sweat while lost in his mind, so he rolled down the window, hoping the wind would stop the flutter of his stomach. Jake then turned the radio station, settling on The Dixie Chicks, not his usual fare at all, and continued to drive. Natalie Maines' singing blended into other songs, some he loved, some he hated because she loved them, and one in particular that made him spin the dial with fervor, settling on Jim Morrison rather than Axl Rose's breakout hit, which made his heart beat quickly, and he was glad to listen to The Doors. The Doors didn't make him miss her. Bruce Springsteen did, though, because she loved The Boss, loved to listen him as they sped over the curves of the desert roads in the dark of the night, talking about everything and nothing, watching the wild horses, and knowing that in their souls, together, they were as free as the horses.

His mind fell into the monotony of driving out I-80, trying to avoid thinking about what he was preparing to do. The landscape passed him by, and he stopped for gas, knowing that he was hitting the final part of driving all those miles down the state. Getting back on the interstate, his heart raced as he saw signs. Each one pushed him closer and closer to his destination.

_Someday girl I don't know when _

_We're gonna get to that place _

_Where we really wanna go _

_And we'll walk in the sun _

_But till then tramps like us _

_Baby, we were born to run _

_Oh Honey, tramps like us, _

_Baby we were born to Run_

_Born to Run_, Bruce Springsteen


	2. If You're Going to San Francisco

_You just better start sniffin' your own_

_rank subjugation, Jack, `cause it's just you_

_against your tattered libido, the bank and_

_the mortician, forever man, and it wouldn't_

_be luck if you could get out of life alive_

_-Knockin on Heaven's Door_, Guns N' Roses

Some time later, Jake's palms were sweating and his skin was clammy. The daylight had shifted, and it was now early evening in a generally nondescript urban neighborhood. Still, he felt uneasy, and he wasn't sure if that was because cities themself made him ill, or if it was this street, this city, and what he was about to do. Jake glanced up the block as a mother pushed a jogging stroller past him. She glanced at him, warily, as though wondering what a man in a t-shirt and a cowboy hat was doing in her neighborhood, sitting in a truck that hadn't been produced since 1980. She looked away, after a second of looking him over. It was then that Jake noticed that she had green eyes. His stomach rolled as a moment of hurt sliced through him, and he nearly wondered why she had eyes like that, when her's could never compare. They were celery colored, not mossy.

He paused, pulling his duffel bag from the back seat, and throwing the strap over his body, he unzipped the small front pocket to put the keys away. Jake ran his hand tiredly over his worn face, knowing that this was going to go well, or horribly. He shut off the Scout, sitting in silence for a moment. Axl Rose's words were replaced by the sounds of a city he didn't know, a place he wanted to be more than anything, even as his mind told him this would all be for naught. He knew he could wait no longer, and so he prepared to get out, unsure as to what to do. He looked at his hands, and noticed without analysis that they still shook. When would his hands stop shaking? Self-loathing ripped through him. Jake slammed his fist, as hard as he could, onto the steering wheel, glad for a second that the fog lifted enough for him to feel pain, to hurt in a way that made sense. There was a reason his hand hurt, one that made sense, one that would ease. He didn't know what to do with the other pain, the pain that made no sense to him, still.

He had driven all this way, to this one doorstep, without one thought as to what he might say. What could he say? He shoved the slip of paper with a faded address written on it back into his wallet once he stood on the sidewalk. He'd checked the address and driven around the block once, making sure, almost afraid, even after he'd come this far. The creak of the door shutting on the Scout mingled with the sounds of the city that bustled around him. After crossing a set of trolley tracks, and nearly tripping over a pothole, Jake approached the door of a small, but cute, home with red shutters and grey paint. He could do this. He hoped. He had no choice. To turn away now was unthinkable, unconscionable.

Steeling his spine, Jake knocked, and inhaled. There was a moment of nothingness, and then a woman who looked eerily like the one person he missed most opened the door, with a soft swish. He could see a tiny entry behind her, followed by a living room. His head began to spin.

"Hello?" She asked confidently, pausing suddenly when she saw who it was. Sue stammered. "Oh. Uh, Jake, isn't it?" Sue blurted.

"Yes ma'am. Jake Ely. I need to..I came to..." He couldn't finish. How was he to tell her anything when he didn't know himself? What did he need to do? There was a moment of hesitation. The woman, Sue, looked at him with sadness in her eyes. Then, understanding dawned, comprehension bloomed, and she nodded slowly.

"Right. Come in." She stepped back, allowing him entry. "The room to the left. I won't bother asking you to remove your shoes." Sue smiled at him as his gaze flicked over her white carpets. "Sam told me about that breach of the cowboy code the day she came home." Sue's voice held a note of humor underneath the sadness evident there, but she sobered. "Are you sure? She's not well, honey, and I don't want either of you upset."

Jake just strode towards Sam's door, back a hallway, as though her question had insulted him. Sue decided as she watched him walk away that he probably thought it did. Sue spoke quietly. "Hope this goes okay..."

_The longer I stand here_

_The louder the silence_

_I know that you're gone but sometimes I swear that I hear_

_Your voice when the wind blows_

_So I talk to the shadows_

_Hoping you might be listening 'cos I want you to know_

_It's so loud inside my head_

_With words that I should have said_

_And as I drown in my regrets_

_I can't take back the words I never said_

_I never said... _

_Words,_ Skylar Grey

Jake paused as he stood in the open doorway. There, sitting in the big chair next to a hospital bed that was angled away from the door, was Sam. Blood rushed from his head to his feet and back again so quickly that he felt it move as he studied the room before him. He couldn't really see her, but he knew, and he liked to think that he could feel her, there. The bed was facing the big window and blocked most of his view of her, but even from the door, he could see that Sam had lost at least 30 pounds of her previously normal weight. He was no good at estimating women's bodies, even at school, he'd never thought to look at them, never wanted to, but he knew in his soul that Sam was different. He could tell, right down to the smallest change, somehow. He hadn't been expecting it, and the folly of his innocent suppositions hit him like a lance. His mind screamed that this was his fault even as another part of his mind, his soul, drank in her existence like a drunk man shaking out the last bits of liquor from a bottle. She looked slight, like paper and glass, in the large chair, tiny in a way that he could not fathom. Jake felt the urge to gather her up, slam the door shut, shut out the world, until she was better, until he could breathe, and feel her against him like he had for every single day of his life.

It hit him that in 16 years, this was the end of the longest separation they'd ever faced. In that doorway, he swore to God, deep within his heart, that there would never again be such a long stretch of time again. Never again, he promised himself, would there be a day that did not start and end with her. The facts of their educations could go hang for all he cared, as he'd come home two weekends a month over the last year of school. It wasn't enough. He knew that another separation would kill him, now that he felt some semblance of life within himself. How had he not realized how colorless his life had been? Was it really so pathetic to admit that life sucked without her? What did it mean?

They certainly weren't in love, like his idiot roommate insisted, but he'd be lying if he didn't admit that he knew he loved her. There was a line, he was certain, that separated the two. After all, hadn't he loved her since he was three and Aunt Lou had placed a pillow on his lap and put Sam on the pillow? That love hadn't really changed, it just had intensified. He still felt completed when he looked at her, still felt this horrible urge to hug her and never let go, not until he felt safe again.

Jake didn't put much stock in the metaphysical, but even he knew he could feel her energy. It was sad, almost withdrawn. That fact killed him, as the last time he'd seen her, she'd been coming out of a medically induced coma, her vision blurry, her speech slurred. They hadn't spoken that day, but he'd stayed on the computer until she fell asleep and the nurse shut him down. Heck, he'd sat there for another three hours, hearing her unassisted breath in his ears, even over the miles and poor webcams that distorted them.

The days had been so long, without her. They had been hell, simply because he knew that he had no clue what she was really doing, thinking, feeling. While normally he acted like he didn't really care, he didn't have to, because he knew that she was up to her normal life. He could normally read her like a book, and on the occasions he couldn't, she was generally all too willing to fill him in, to keep him in her world. Now, nothing was normal anymore. Nothing was normal, safe, happy. Now, he had all of these questions, and no answers. He had to find some.

"Brat?" He whispered, a tendril of joy spreading up from his toes. The last time he'd said that word, he'd woken up, it wrenching from his chapped lips as he bolted awake, covered in sweat.

Her head turned. "Wh-What?" She had a startled look on her face. That look conveyed far more than her halting, forced word had. She had no idea why he was here. He came over to where she was sitting and sank down in front of her, barely resisting the urge to pull away her quilt and hug her.

"Brat." His word was filled with emotions he couldn't name.

"Why...are you h-here?" She wouldn't meet his eyes, instead focusing on the urban environment outside the window that he knew upset her. She'd told him a thousand times over the phone, she didn't want him to come visit. Maybe he should have respected her wishes, but he'd asked himself a thousand times on the drive over here, what would she have done, in his place? She had never really said why, but now he got it. The answers to both his questions were clear. She didn't feel like herself, right down to her energy in the room. She was bruised, and cold to the touch, but so was he. So was he. And maybe, soon, they wouldn't be anymore.

He placed fingers under he chin and gently guided her face until she was looking him in the eyes. "I don't know." He paused, expecting her to cut him off. She hated when he didn't know things. As a child, she would become infuriated when those words passed his lips, in such a way that made him laugh then. She would slam her hands on her tiny hips and insist that he knew whatever he didn't know, and that he was being a jerk and not telling her, and if really was her friend, he'd tell her.

In later years, it her anger had changed, simply because he knew she'd come to realize that they were finding the answers together, creating them out of the raw materials that were their lives. And anyway, she was a know-it-all, who liked to think she knew more than he did, but he always waited, always, for her to cut him off. Jake waited a beat for her to cut him off, honoring their traditions, and noticed that the hand that was running over her skin was no longer shaking. His hands felt steady, again, and attached to his body. The whole moment was so heady, he felt like he was going to pass out. This was, he realized, some of the most hesitant touch they'd ever shared, considering she'd spent half her childhood demanding to be carried around like the brat she was, and still it felt like there nerve endings exploding in his hand. When she merely looked at him as if to say, "oh?" he continued, knowing that what he was going to say was a game changer.

He spoke, softly, unable and unwilling to take his eyes off of hers, so Sam-like in their intensity that he almost cried. "I don't know. This morning, I just knew...that I had to see you. I looked at the Scout, and I looked at the ranch, and I thought..." He trailed off, voice thick, unable to tell her that not a single thing mattered unless she was there to share it with him. There was no way to tell her that. It made no sense.

He frowned, admitting the deepest of his secrets almost hurt, but he owed her his honesty. She'd taken his hand, and was running her thumb over it as though she was memorizing the texture of his work roughened hand, and he nearly lost his train of thought, that was until she lightly skimmed over a fading bruise, and he realized what he could say. She knew he could be rash. "Brat. When Dad told me you were staying with Sue, I put a hole in the wall. Bashed my hand up good." He smiled sadly, flexing the hand in question, showing her the fading bruise, much like the ones on her arm, glossing over the pain that still lanced through him, trying to put it in perspective. His own misery was worthless in comparison to hers, even if she refused to talk about it over the phone. They were bruised, and broken, each in their own way. He would have done anything to be in her shoes, so she wouldn't have to be.

There was a moment of silence, heavy, expectant between them. "I don't know much, Brat." He sighed, knowing that for once in his life, he'd rather regret saying something than not saying it. He was throwing himself over, into her, for judgement, for reprisal, even as he knew that what he was about to make her angry, even though it was the truth. "I know that every day is a decade without you. I know that...you're mine to protect. And I failed you once, when you needed me, and I'll have to be dead and buried before I stand by and let it happen again."

She bristled, as much as possible, given that she had practically glommed onto him, and was seated, wrapped in a blanket. "You di-did not fail me, in anything. No guilt." Her words, though forced and somehow rusty from disuse, were filled with vigor and certainty. She, in halting words, continued. "I miss you, too. Stay. With me. Please."

Jake stood, after a moment, and wrapped his arms around the girl he'd missed beyond measure. He wasn't cold, anymore, and in fact, felt a tendril of warmth spreading through him. He wasn't cold, but the tears that fell onto Sam's shoulder were, as were her tears that dampened his shirt front. He whispered into her hair, "Always." No more was said, because nothing needed to be said.

Out in the hall, Sue was shocked, and taken aback. She'd heard the entire conversation, and felt she had just intruded in on an incredibly personal moment. She felt like a voyeur. She knew, of course, that Sam and Jake were friends, but she'd had no idea that her 16 year old niece was in love with Jake, nor that he returned the emotion with such intensity. What else was she to take away from the exchange? Sam had asked Jake to be near to her, after weeks of pushing Sue away. After weeks of showing the world a stoic expression, she had finally cried. Weeks of rehab had gone by, and she'd never cried in front of Sue, if at all. She attacked her rehab process with tenacity and stubbornness, pushing herself forward as much as she'd pushed other people back. She had asked for nothing, other than privacy, and now she was asking for Jake? It almost shook her, to know that Louise wasn't here to see her little girl so obviously dealing with a woman's emotions. With a heavy heart, Sue walked to the kitchen and picked up the phone. Finding a number from the list Wyatt had given her, she dialed with trepidation.

There was no preamble to the greeting. "Sam! I'm sorry, honey, but you've missed Jake." The voice was cheery, but apologetic. She thought it sounded like Maxine, but she wasn't sure, they visited so rarely.

Sue spoke, "This is actually Sam's aunt, Susan. To whom am I speaking?"

The voice on the other end was concerned, "Oh! Hi, Sue. It's Maxine Ely. Is Sam alright?"

"As well as can be expected." Sue hedged, "I'm calling to ask you...do you know that your son drove down here today?"

Max was clearly surprised. "I beg your pardon?"

Sue rephrased. "He's currently sitting in Sam's room." Sue's mind flashed back to the scene that had been played out in Sam's room and she didn't really know what to say. Did she say what she thought?

Max sobered, "I see. Do you know...if he plans to come home tonight?"

"Ah, judging by the conversation I overheard..." Sue floundered, "he seems to be intent on staying for a while. Which is fine with me. I don't mind having him here, at all. In fact, we could use, Sam could use, the support. But of course, I'll ship him out now if you think that's best." Sue spoke.

Max was hesitant. "I would really need to talk to both Sam and Jake about that, and Luke too, but I certainly don't see the harm in letting them be for the night. We can talk this out tomorrow, if that's agreeable."

Sue agreed. "It's pretty emotional around here right now. I think waiting a few hours might give them some perspective."

Max agreed wholeheartedly. "Sue, I hesitate to ask...but, how is Sam, really?"

Sue sighed, deciding to be more frank than Sam was, but not elaborate overmuch, out of respect for Sam, "Not well, Maxine. She's recovering by sheer force of will. She misses you guys, but she's lonely and withdrawn. Life is such a struggle for her. Her therapists are optimistic, but a it's tough for a 16 year old with a TBI. She's had huge setbacks, verbally and with her motor skills. Her verbal skills are improving quickly, but she can't do much physically, and she's got the headaches and all of that, too."

"Oh, Sue." There was a tremor to Maxine Ely's voice.

"She'd kill me if she knew I was telling you this." Sue confessed.

"I know." Max replied. "Have my errant son call me in the morning."

"Will do." Sue replied.

_I get this feeling I may know you as a lover and a friend._

_But this voice keeps whispering in my other ear,_

_Tells me I may never see you again..._

_Peaceful Easy Feeling_, The Eagles

Back in the bedroom, Jake had noticed that Sam was leaning heavily into him. "Tired, Brat?"

"I...could...sleep, y-yeah." She yawned.

He sensed she was more tired than she let on and so Jake did the only sensible thing. Jake pulled the covers down on her bed, scooped her up, without asking for permission, though she must have seen it coming in enough time to stop him as he tried to move slowly, and placed her in it. He was shocked by her fragility, the slight tensity to her body when he touched her, almost as if it hurt. He thought of asking, almost did, but she sighed, and every thought flew from his brain. As he went to pull up the covers, a hand was placed on his arm. She spoke hesitantly. "Jake..."

He paused, almost afraid. He had hurt her, he knew, and that fact sliced through him. "Hm?"

"Stay." She smiled wearily. "Ho-How else will I know you're here?"

Jake tried to be wary. What would Sue say? But at this point, he could deny her nothing. He knew he wouldn't sleep himself. The nightmares would keep him up, and at least he would be able to stay with her. He sat and pulled off his boots, and spooned her weakened body. God, she was so thin. Just weeks ago, he'd made some crack about her hips, and now he could feel the bones in them. The knife twisted in his gut, and he would have given anything to take back those silly words. Her body had always been a thing of wonder, so he was instantly sorry for his words, and in awe, because she'd survived. She'd lived, she'd lived, and he could hold her. Why was he even trying to deny that he wanted to hold her, to feel her heart beat, more than he wanted to breathe? "Just until you sleep, okay?"

She replied, sleepily, and the sound sent a bolt of joy through him. "Hm..."

Sue paused as she hung up the phone. She didn't hear voices. She might only have had a teenager in the house for a few weeks, but even she knew that was something to be investigated. What she found shook her, as much as the young man showing up at her door. Jake and Sam were cuddled together. His face was buried in what was left of her once wild hair. Her arm was clinging to his arm that was wrapped about her. His leg was intertwined with her legs. Sam was probably more comfortable because the support took pressure of her aching back. Sue knew that Sam's back caused her a lot of pain, keeping her from being comfortable enough to sleep. Not to mention, Sue knew, even though Sam refused to talk about them, tha Sam was having some sort of nightmares. Despite that, both young people were deeply asleep. Sighing heavily, wishing for some guidence, Sue shut the blinds and the door. A little sleep would do them good. She just worried they were in way over their heads.

_But what happens when karma turns right around and bites you?_

_And everything you stand for, turns on you, to spite you?_

_What happens when you become the main source of her pain?_

_When I'm Gone_, Eminem

Later, Sam stirred. She blinked. She felt...warm. And safe. She was wrapped up in feelings that had been ripped away since her arrival here. Her sleep had not been haunted by the accident, but by the look on her father's face as he sent her away. He heart began to race as she felt the warmth of the cotton sheets, the slight sheet of sleep sweat on her feet, and wondered if Sue had gotten her an electric blanket. Every bit of her hurt, but she hadn't been so warm, or felt so secure in her own body, in her sense of where she was in space, that she couldn't help but feel a spark of joy. Someone was in her bed, an arm was wrapped around her. What was happening? Was this a nightmare, again? Jake always showed up in them, to hug her, but then they turned horrible, and she woke up screaming. Was this a lucid dream? It was then that she smelled the minty smell that was uniquely her friend's, and felt his arm wrapped around her. She barely resisted the urge to let sleep slide over her again, to twist her feet more tightly into his embrace, and sleep, knowing that, somehow, he was there.

She couldn't resist whispering his name, tasting the word as it slipped past her bruised lips. "Jake...?" She winced when she heard her own voice. She wanted to cry. Why couldn't her thoughts come out without this whole mess getting in the way?

He woke up as she spoke, almost instantly. She could feel his body tense. "Sam?" He inhaled, from behind her. She hoped her hair didn't stink. He asked, sleep fading from his voice, "You okay?"

"Just...I feel..." She huffed a breath. She tried to roll over but found it impossible. She couldn't really do it, not anymore, not without help, and she felt a pang of shame. If asked, she'd pass it off as not being used to having him in her bed. Surprisingly, he seemed to know, or know not to ask, and offered silently to help her turn. They figured it out, Sam realizing that if she pushed, and he tugged a little, once they shifted the blankets, she could move onto her side. With a little help from Jake, and she was staring into those mustang eyes. She found the word she needed therein. "...warm." It wasn't what she meant to say, not at all, but somehow, the word fit.

"I know." He replied, and she felt like they were having a moment. Sam was surprised not to be angry by his frank admission. He knew. He did know. He knew. She wasn't alone in knowing, anymore. The only sound they made was their breathing, and the moment was timeless, and perfect. Sam was skilled enough to shove away physical pain in favor of the mental happiness she was feeling. After a second that flared bright between them, Jake continued, "You hungry?" He knew she should eat. He'd been badgering her on the phone to do so, but now that he was here, he rejoiced in the fact that he could damn well make her. Surprisingly, he found that he was hungry. He hadn't been hungry in weeks.

"N-no." She denied.

"I am." Jake admitted, with some surprise, "You can sit with me then." He sat and swung around the bed to sit up. Then, he shoved his feet into his boots, quickly tugging the laces. He should have worn his sneakers, instead of throwing them in his duffel bag. His own mother rarely saw him without shoes. His feet weren't something that Sue needed to see. He watched as Sam struggled to sit. First, she used her elbows to push straight up, but failed against the questionable give of the bed. She then turned to the right slightly, and pushed up with her left arm. It was then he noticed something.

"Brat." Jake's voice held of note of suspicion that he didn't try to hide, "Where's your brace?"

"D-ditched it. Stupid. U-useless." Her tone conveyed much, as she flopped back again, a look of fury on her face.

"Okay." He soothed quickly, "Okay. Hang on." He had no clue what he was doing as he slipped his arm around her and guided her to sitting.

Sam's soft, "Don't pull." redoubled his focus as he helped her as she sat. Her nightdress had bunched above her knees and she tugged it down as she spoke. "I think...maybe...I think I just need to sit."

His tan skin went chalky, and his stomach rolled. "Sam, are you...can you...walk okay?" It was killing him. This was his fault. It wasn't guilt that drove him to her, but responsibility. She wouldn't see the difference, but he did. He would be responsible for taking care of her, no matter what. The fact that the accident was his fault had nothing to do with why he felt the need to be the one to help her through this. The fact that the accident was his fault was something he'd accepted. He still hurt, still felt pain, but he could not accept that she was not his to care for. That's what, he realized, that's what had made his life a living hell. Not guilt over the facts of the accident, but guilt of not being supportive. That was his job. That was his role.

She smiled, one of bitterness. "Ah, not so much. It...I'm w-working on it. There's nothing wrong with my s-spinal cord, but the pain makes it...painful. Just need a few more days of practice." Tears prickled, but she shook them away from the corners of her eyes as she tried to shrug. "Well, I'm on medication. Anyway, only have to get two steps from here." Jake wondered what she meant, but couldn't ask, as Sam rushed to action before his aching throat could find the words.

She grabbed his hand, and started to slide towards the floor intent on making her way to the solitary chair by the window. She knew she would land on her feet. The bed was tall, and she was short. But it seemed Jake wasn't too fond of her methods. Gently, he scooped her up again amid half-hearted protests and strode to the couch. She sank back into the couch as he sat gently next to her. It didn't hurt like she'd anticipated sitting on the fluffy sofa would.

He looked at her as if to say "Where's Sue?"

Just then they heard the door open and Sue walked in. She was carrying takeout from the Cantonese place down the block.

"Oh!" She stopped short when she saw the two of them sitting on the couch. "Sam, you came out of your room."

"I..didn't...have much choice." Sam huffed as she struggled to shift around.

Sue laughed. "I see. Well, now that you're up, we'll eat. I got takeout. I hope you like Chinese, Jake. I didn't know, so I got you some chicken something or other." She offered, "We can split what we have if you don't like it or there's always the freezer."

Jake reminded her. "I'm not picky. I have five older brothers." As if that said it all, and maybe it did.

Sam's head began to spin as Sue placed cartons on the coffee table. There was broccoli and rice for her. Sue knew meats were beyond what she could handle, given that the texture seemed off to her right now. She'd outright spat out any kind of meat she'd tried to eat. Nevertheless, Sam tried to eat. She had to, to take the next dose of medications. Even with the anti nausea medication, the pain pills made her regret this choice not an hour later.

"This is so embarrassing." She shuddered, over the basin.

There was a soothing hand on her shoulder. Sue said, "It's only vomit, Sam."

"I want to die. I would rather be in pain." She doubled over the basin as a wave of nausea hit her. "I can't even eat what I want to." Sam supposed that her body's systems were all messed up, still. At least that's what Matrona, her roommate at rehab had told her. Plus, all of the medications didn't help, and no matter how the fiddled with the doses, she often became ill. It could be worse, she figured. It had been worse.

Jake slumped, sitting on the floor with his back to the wall outside of the bathroom door. He should be the one in pain, wishing for his own death. It was their work, his passions, that had caused her this pain. If he hadn't been who he was... He knew better than to have let her...everything that he'd stood for, everything he cared about him, had turned on him, turned on him, every bit of his training had failed and he...no, he couldn't think of it now. He had to deal with the present before he could deal with the accident that loomed over them. But he was helpless. Sam pushed him away when she'd started to feel sick and he hadn't been of any help since. Even cleaning up dinner had not helped him to feel useful.

Ten minutes later, Sam was standing, leaning on Sue as she shuffled back to her bed. She spared him a look, but the door shut. He was admitted to her room by a pale Sue, who exited as he entered. "I think she wants to talk to you. Don't let her upset you."

Sam looked even more haggard, even as there was steel and grit in her eyes. She spoke softly and as fluidly as her injury would allow. "Why are you here?"

"What?" He asked, floored. Why was he here? Why did magnets stick to a fridge? What?

She raised her brows. Where had she learned to do that so imperiously, he wondered. "Did my father send you?"

"No. I came by myself." He was taken aback, "You are my friend, Sam. When I got the chicken pox, you passed the time sending me silly notes."

"This is not the same." She was firm, even as he could tell she was thinking about the silly notes she'd made and shoved under the front door of Three Ponies. That had been silly and fun, even though she had gotten her own case of chicken pox three weeks later. She knew he'd be better soon.

He frowned, sitting in her chair, gaze level to hers. "Just tell me how is it different?"

"Because!" She nearly yelled, calming after a second, "It won't go away in five days. What if I'm stuck like this?" Sam confessed, he knew, her worst fear. "This is going to take a long time, Jake."

"Then...then..." His heart raced. If she never...got any better, than things would be okay, sooner or later. They'd figure it out. They'd make it work, somehow. There were ways. There was a life after this, even if it wasn't the one they'd planned. They'd be okay, together. "I get to spend my time with you. I just...don't send me away because you think..." He swallowed, begging, "Give me a shot, Brat."

"This isn't fair to you." She tried to explain.

His eyes were haunted, as he asked. "And it's fairer to you...?"

There was a knock, then, cutting her reply off. Sue spoke brightly. "Jake, I've made up the guest room for you. Towels are in the closet. I'm going to bed, but don't hurry off. Remember, your mother is expecting a call in the morning. Sam, I have work."

Four hours later, neither Sam nor Jake could find any rest. She'd called Sue twice for help rolling over. Her aunt never complained, but Sam hated it. She felt like a burden, trapped in her own body., unaware of how to make it move, where it existed in the spaces around her. It couldn't be helped though. She'd hardly slept at the rehab center, or at the very least, the issue of rolling was different in the bed there. How horrible that the bed made all the difference. Was her life really reduced to this, that these tiny variables could make all the difference to her ability to function, to survive? Finally, at the third time she sheepishly asked for help, Jake came. She wasn't expecting him as she said, to the darkness. "I'm sorry, Sue. I just...can't turn."

"I'm not Sue." Jake softly corrected, sliding a hand into hers, "Here." He lowered the bar on the bed. She looked at him, the light in the hallway casting a slight shadow of light into the room. What was he doing up so late? With a sigh, the look she shot him conveyed her request, even though she knew he could barely make it out. He didn't hesistate, not for a second, sliding in next to her, and pulling half the covers his way. A second later, Sam reached out, hesitantly, and placed her head into the crook of Jake's neck, breathing in his scent. They fell asleep cuddled together. Again.

_When I feel blue in the night_

_And I need you to hold me tight_

_Whenever I want you, all I have to do is_

_Drea-ea-ea-ea-eam_

_All I Have to do is Dream_, The Everly Brothers


	3. Not Ready to Make Nice

_I must go on standing _

_You can't break that which isn't isn't yours, yours_

_I, oh, must go on standing _

_I'm not my own, it's not my choice _

_Be afraid of the lame _

_They'll inherit your legs _

_Be afraid of the old _

_They'll inherit your souls _

_Be afraid of the cold _

_They'll inherit your blood_

_Apres Moi_, Regina Spektor

"Oh, My sweet Lord." Jake awoke with a start to find a large woman leaning over their, Sam's, he forced his mind to correct, bed, peering at him as though he were some sort of rattle snake.

"Shh!" He shot the intruder a look as he began to shift out of Sam's embrace. Sam was facing him, now, and their legs and arms were intertwined. He wondered how they managed to sleep so well like this given how close they'd been and how uncomfortable the bed was. He tried to move out of the bed, quickly. Just as he gently pulled his right arm from under her and sat up, Sam stirred. Jake tensed. She'd been up four times to move around, and had gotten pain pills and water at another occasion. She needed sleep.

Sam needed sleep, but it was not to be as she woke up with a bleary "Jake?"

"It's early, Brat. Sleep." His voice was tired, but it comforted Sam until she heard the drapes being pulled.

"Matter of fact, it is not early, Miss Sam." Regina corrected Jake, no humor in her normally kind voice, "You have things to do today. First off, telling me how this young man ended up in your bed."

"Regina." Sam stiffened, "What time is it?"

Jake found the buttons on her bed, and rose the top third slightly, unwilling to move the blankets in front of this woman. "Nearly ten." He replied, asking Sam with a quirked brow, "Who's she?" Sam yawned, and brushed a strand of hair out of her, her eyes slamming closed at the onslaught of sunlight.

Regina, never one to be ignored, spoke, "I'm Regina from the nursing agency. I'm hanging about until Miss Sam is all better so her Aunt can go to work." Her tone turned skeptical, "Who are you?"

"Jake Ely. " He was glad for the long sleeves he was wearing, the ones that went with his sleep pants. This woman, large and imposing with a wide smile, didn't seem the sort to appreciate any sort of behavior she didn't deem correct. "A friend from home."

"Honey, if I had friends like him..." She shook her head at Sam. She made a disapproving sound, "Lord above, boy. Out!"

Sam smiled and nodded at him. She was safe with this woman, then, no matter how uncomfortable she seemed. Regina spluttered when she moved the blankets. Their pajamas were a set. Sam's grey nightshirt with tiny navy dots matched the navy of his pants and the grey of his shirt. Sam calmly reached up to her shoulder and tugged the shoulder seam back in place, as it was too big on her. Her bare shoulder was once again hidden. It was then that Regina's confusion registered in Jake's brain. Grace had teased them growing up with coordinating outfits, and as they grew older, matching pajamas so they wouldn't run into each other as a set. At the speculative look in Regina's eyes, Jake fled to the shower down the hall.

"Now, Miss Sam..." Regina shut the door with a slight smile, "we'll get you all pretty for your young man."

Sam corrected her, "He is n-not my anything, R-regina."

"Uh-huh." The woman replied, moving to the dresser, "I tell you, darling, a lie is a lie and believing it to be true don't help it any."

In the next half hour, Regina had coaxed Sam into a shower. Sam insisted on her privacy once she was seated on the stool they insisted she needed until she relearned some of the finer points of something so elemental as standing, let alone standing in a wet, slippery shower. As she soaped her body, it occurred to her that she'd lost weight since the...No. She wouldn't go there. She simply noticed the bones in the thinner parts of her body seemed more prominent. It didn't matter much. It was what it was, and, her mind scoffed, didn't every girl want to be thin?

Her hair was another story. Nobody would want hair like hers. Although never a vain woman, Sam had loved her hair, the vibrancy of it. Her hair had always made her feel pretty, and sometimes, though she'd likely never admit it, sometimes it had made her feel pretty in a way that was decidedly sexual. All of that was no more, as when she'd woken from the coma, the long locks had been a choppy mess, with a bit shaved away from where'd they'd operated quickly to relive pressure and look for other issues. To hide her shame and the shaven part, the first thing she'd done upon her release from the rehab was have it cut. The hairdresser had called it "pixie cute" but Sam thought of it quite differently. It was lifeless, weak, brittle, and downright ugly.

The tears came from nowhere as she reached up to feel another brittle strand pull away in her hand. It seemed all she did was cry. Well, no more. In that moment, Sam decided that she was going to cowgirl up. Even though her father had sent her to the city, you couldn't take the grit out of a girl no matter how far removed she was from her land. She would buck up. But...why was Jake here?

Why? Was he here out of guilt, because if he was, she thought, he could just go on home and take his pathetic guilt with him. And yet, she knew deep down she wanted his support, wanted his care. She'd not slept in months and was deeply asleep within moments of his arrival. She couldn't bear the idea that Jake was connected to that fact. She missed home was all. It wasn't as if she honestly felt safe next to him, not like that, anyway. He wasn't her home. No. He just..reminded her of home, of where she belonged, like no item from the house could.

"Miss Sam, you need help?" Regina was concerned, it seemed.

"Ah, no." Her life, her showers, were not her own. "I'm done." She could not have a moment alone to wallow in her own misery, her own pain. Sam shut of the water, even though it took her a long time to figure out that she had to push the knob in to turn off the shower and twist the handle to shut of the water. It wasn't like that at home.

Regina was respectful of her modesty, but it was humiliating to have someone seeing her nakedness. Regina helped her to dress, even, weak and tired as she was from the currently complex act of getting in and out of the shower stall. Now, she had to lift one foot, scoot a bit, but not too much, or she'd fall off the stool, and turn as she moved the other leg out over the lip of the shower, and pull up, feeling every ounce of her weight being thrown off balance as she did so. She just kept the mantra of "cowgirl up" alive in her mind. It got her through the humilation.

Nevertheless, cowgirling up was exhausting. She yawned as she sat on the wheelchair in the bathroom. She looked in the mirror, at the bruises from the bloodwork, at her pitiful hair, and buried her face in her hands. Why did they have to cut her hair?

"Sam?" Regina could see the pain the girl was in, even from the doorway, and called her name softly.

"I'm fine, Regina. Let's get going." Sam pulled the brakes back on the wheelchair, temporary though it was. She hated it, but she'd tried to avoid using it once after a shower, and had fallen, because of how weak she was and how funny escaping the warm room made her feel, not to mention how unstable she'd been transitioning from tile to carpet to wood floors with damp feet. She'd rather not fall in front of Jake. As she thought, Regina pushed her into the living room. Sam would never admit it, but her heart sped up when she couldn't find Jake. She didn't need him, she reminded herself. It just wasn't like him to disappear. That's all. Plus, San Fransisco wasn't Darton county and he needed to know that. After a second of looking around, Sam heard the stove sizzling, heard the shuffle of plates, and her heart calmed, even as her stomach rolled. She couldn't eat. There was no way.

"Well, Regina. What's the order of torture for today?" Sam deadpanned, even with the stammer.

"At least you're laughing." Regina commended her, "Today, you have physical therapy. In an hour and a half. Speech Monday."

"Goody." Came the same lifeless tone. She sighed. Who thought this grueling schedule was helpful? All she wanted to do was sleep.

"Brat." Came a voice from the kitchen.

"Wh-what?" Sam replied, embarrassed at the look that crossed Regina's face. She'd have to explain that it was...what? Not a nickname. A pet name? Gross, Sam thought, she wasn't his dog. An endearment? No. She'd string him up by his feet if he ever called her honey, or baby, or Sugar or whatever it was men called their...best friends? Right. The whole Brat thing was complicated.

"You hungry?" Damn him, Sam thought. He was doing this, wasn't he? What a jerk.

"No. I'm ti-tired." And she was, deep in her bones.

"Too bad. I cooked." He was firm. "We're eating." After a beat, he added, every ounce of steel gone from his tone, "Regina, there's enough."

"I do-don't care." Sam tried to argue. "You g'on. Eat."

"Sam." Jake admonished, as though that was all there was to be said. Regina seemed to agree, for the chair began moving towards the kitchen as Regina began to chatter about how nice of him it was to cook for Miss Sam and imagine, an old lady like her. She would just have to try it. And so would Sam.

Sam was irritable. "You can't force me to eat, Jake. I'm not a child."

Jake replied with a raised eyebrow. "Then don't act like it. Eat."

She ate, and watched in wonder as Jake ate, easily, four times what she did. It was probably a good thing. He looked a little worn, a little thin. Had Max stopped cooking, up home? That certainly would never be the case. Jen had told her that Jake was being quiet, but since when was that a change from the normal? Jen had sighed like Sam wasn't getting what she was trying to say, but she'd had to go, as Edye, Regina's co-worker, had come in, and told her that phone time was up, simply because she needed to make a call. While Sam normally would have stood her ground, and finished her call, she was inexplicably wary of Edye.

_You went into the kitchen cupboard_

_Got yourself another hour and gave_

_Half of it to me_

_The Calculation_, Regina Spektor

Jake was scared. Sam was so pale and shaken after a simple shower. She had asked Regina to turn down the light in the room, only to stammer apologies when she was told it was the sunlight. She seemed so tired, in a way that he had never seen before. He was afraid she would call his bluff and not eat. But if she didn't eat, how would she survive the sessions and therapy? It took all he had to be stern with her, when all he wanted to do was hug her and cry. Jake felt helpless. He was shaken by how heavy her fork seemed to be, how uncomfortable she was, and the disgust with which she took her pills. She refused a pain pill.

"I need to be able to feel myself. For the...tharapist." And that was that. Regina bundled her out to the sidewalk with a measure of practiced grace, and she was off. He watched her go, resisting the compulsion to follow. He was alone, left with nothing but a sink full of dishes and a phone call to make.

He knew the call had to come first, and so he dialed. There were three rings. He almost hoped no one was home.

Mom picked up the phone, "Hello?"

"Mama?" Jake asked.

"Jake." Mom replied, with some surprise,"You called."

"Sue asked me to." He replied.

"We need to talk." She said, and he knew he was in for it. It didn't matter that he was 19, or that he was legally an adult. Mom didn't care about that, "You can't just...run off! You crossed state lines when I thought you were going into Darton or Alkali. Imagine my surprise when Sue called and told me that my honest Abe of a son was sitting in her house. Jake..."

He cut her off. "I never lied to you, Mama." He paused. "I...just...missed Sam. A lot. And her phone calls started scaring me. She wasn't sleeping, eating, her voice was so lost."

"You're admitting you were scared? About not not functioning?" After a beat, she hastened to add, "That Sam wasn't functioning well, I mean?"

"I'm still scared. Mom, she's so sick. So hurt. I never... Why couldn't this have been me? She's in so much pain. So much. And she never says. But her eyes..." His voice was thick.

"Baby, we understand." Max was hurting inside, because her unflappable son was in tears.

"No!" He was certain. "You think you do. I thought I did, but I had no clue. Neither do you."

"Jake, this isn't your burden to carry." Max loved Sam, but maybe it was best, like Wyatt said, for her to be apart for a time.

"Then whose is it?" Jake demanded, "Think for a minute. Think. Sam and I have been Sam and I since the day she was born and now, now, you're telling me to walk away? What kind of person does...do you think you raised?"

Max noticed the pause in his sentence and was grateful for the change at the end. "Jake, what's your solution to this?" She asked.

He ran his hand through his hair, sighing. "Does there have to be one today?"

His mother replied, "It's summer. A few days can't hurt. I'll talk things over here with everyone. Maybe by the weekend."

Jake huffed. Sam needed more of him than three days. To be honest, he needed more of her. "Okay."

His mother ended the call, "I'm proud of you, Jake."

His reply, soft though it was, reduced her to tears. "It's my fault. And even if it weren't, would you do any less for someone you cared-for anybody? Bye Mom."

Max cried as Jake took his worry out on a helpless frying pan.

_Country boy, you got a lot to lose._

_Country boy, how I wish I was in your shoes._

_Country Boy_, Johnny Cash

Sam was a schlumpy mess when Regina returned her home. She'd been quiet the whole way back to Sue's house. Regina took pity on her and assisted her to find a comfortable position on the couch, leaving her to her privacy. When Regina came into the kitchen, Jake was reading a book about natural horses or something. How could a horse be natural? Weren't they animals? Regina was so not a country girl. She was from Chicago by way of Atlanta.

She gathered, that while Susan might be something of a city dweller, that Sam was decidedly the opposite. Regina recalled the first day she'd come to work girl had been much worse off, much less stable, and all the while was begging for her horse in her sleep. When awake, she sat quietly, not rude, or angry, simply unwilling to interact any more than necessary. There were clear boundaries with Sam, and while Regina respected that, it was easy to see that the girl was heartbroken. That day, she'd gotten two phone calls, one from someone she called Jen, and the other from Jake. She'd remarked that her Grandmother sometimes called in the evening and that she didn't like green popsicles. That was all she'd said that first day. It had been seven words, seven words in a nine hour shift.

Sometimes, Regina would watch over her as she slept, infrequently as it was. The doctors, according to case notes, were worried about her lungs. In her dreams, Sam would smile and cry out the name of the boy that she now observed, only to start screaming and have to be awoken. Regina doubted that Sam knew that little fact and had been warned not to mention the situation that Sam was injured in. To tell the truth, Regina wondered if it had something to do with the young man in front of her.

She paused for a moment, unwilling to interrupt him, what with how adorable he was, with a small look of interest on his face. He reminded her of Red Thompson, back in the summer of '73. Still, she spoke, "Sam's in the living room. Maybe...you should talk to her."

Jake just nodded and went into the living room. Regina watched as Sam shifted with what little energy she had and made herself comfortable against his body. Jake helped her to shift so that she was nestled against his body, her torso resting on his much broader chest, As though it was nothing unusual, Regina thought. Jake began to read aloud from an impossibly large tome, "As an example, in the latest wave of 'natural horsemanship,' trainers use..."

Two hours later, Regina was getting ready to leave. Susan would be home within seconds. She'd had an illuminating day. After a session of therapy though would have reduced most people to jelly, Sam gritted her teeth and moved on. The girl had guts aplenty, Regina would give her that.

But that...boy! He didn't let her do anything except when Sam put her foot down. He seemed to be able to read Sam's mind, and she his. It was a bit unsettling, really, as was their quiet companionship. They seemed to be content to sit and read, glancing up at each other from time to time, Sam nodding off occasionally against his chest. They seemed abnormal for their ages. That was, of course, until they began to talk to her. Sam and Jake were nice kids as they told her of their lives, ones so unlike her own. Their circumstances had made them mature, and were continuing to do so.

_When I first met her she was only three_

_And I remember how she followed me._

_She was always getting in my way._

_And I still, yes, I still can hear her say_

_"Wait for me, wait for me, Johnny, please wait for me!_

_I love you more than I can hardly stand!_

_Wait for me, wait for me, Johnny, please wait for me!_

_I'll grow up just as fast as I can!_

_Wait for me, wait for me, wait for me, wait for me."_

_As we grew older she would always wait..._

_She'd wait for me by the schoolyard gate._

_I would yell at her to go away..._

_Wait for Me, _The Playmates

Finally, Regina could not hold her curiosity any longer. She had heard her fill about horses and ranches and things she didn't know from Adam. "So. Tell me about you."

Jake's big brown eyes met hers, after meeting Sam's for a second. "What's there to say?"

"Jake!" Sam corrected, but passed the burden onto him, "Think of something."

"Erm. I..." He faltered, and looked uncertain.

"We've always had this problem." Sam admitted. "What do you want to know?"

"Huh." She mused, "What do you two do for fun, at home?"

A dark shadow crossed Sam's face, but she tried, saying, "Hey, remember that time..."

"We stole those chickens from the roadside?" Jake finished.

"Yeah." Sam grinned. When she caught Regina's expression. "Look, they weren't getting the care they needing, being abandoned and all, and it was that, or put them down. They were...lame." She frowned, her expression flipping like a light switch, "Disabled. And nobody wanted them, because of that."

Jake continued, stricken at the analogy Sam was obviously creating, "They just needed a little time and care."

"Oh." Regina finished, unsure what to say, even as her heart was heavy.

Jake, obviously seeking to get the conversation away from this depressing turn, spoke, "I'll get the book."

Sam shook her head as he left, "Jake, no..." Regina was confused, but waited, watching as Sam worried her lip.

He obviously didn't hear her as he returned momentarily presented a thick album to Regina. She opened it, only to see a scrapbook of, well, Sam and Jake, staring back at her. She turned the page, and saw more of the same. "What is this?"

"The Book." Sam said, implying the capitalization in her tone, "It was a project I started when I was 10 in a scrapbooking class I took with Gram. I kept up with it, you know, just be-because."

"Easier to show you, than tell you." Jake added. "This one, that's the time everybody went to the lake." He seemed happier than she'd ever seen him, more expressive, as they slowly revealed their life to her, pages and pages of their shared history, most of which seemed to be wrapped up in horses and ranchwork. "This one, well, that's my brother Kit's wedding."

Regina grinned to herself when she looked down to see a snapshot of Sam, obviously dressed as guest in a wedding, standing sideways in front of an altar, Jake facing her, looking down at her upturned expression with an impassive face of his own. The steps of the altar were right behind them, the photograph framing their positions in the context of stained glass and a large cross above them. The exposure made the background ethereal, while Sam and Jake stood out in sharp clarity. Regina sucked in breath at how lovely Sam had been, how healthy. The changes she could see in the young woman's vitality broke her heart, even as she was humbled by the girl's strength, her powerful approach to life. Talking about this was obviously painful, but for some reason, she was doing it with a smile on her face.

"Don't know why everybody thought that was so funny shot of Quinn's was so funny. It was ten seconds, and we were only there because the receiving line took forever." Sam grumbled.

Regina saw how it was, clearly. Everyone knew, as she did after only knowing them for a few days, that the picture was some kind of glimse into the future, some real life foreshadowing. Regina shook her head, and turned the page, delving deeper into their history. She felt incredibly awed at the gift they were sharing with her, and wondered if they knew how personal this album was, or if it seemed normal to them.

Her favorite pictures, though, were easily the ones from their younger years, of which there were dozens. Jake looked henpecked, and Regina knew instantly where Sam's nickname had come from, but obviously photo-Sam didn't care, because she was running after him, clinging to him, or otherwise there, in every single shot. Maybe it was selection bias, though Regina didn't know.

There, on the final page, after a dozen blank pages, was a worn and tattered 5x7. It was not artfully arranged, nor was the page decorated. For all its simplicity, the image was startling. The photo was simple. There was a woman, obviously Sam's late mother, supporting a small version of Jake, as he sat next to her in hospital bed, legs splayed out towards the camera, with a pillow angled on his lap. In his lap, atop the pillow, there the unmistakable shape of a swaddled infant. The woman's other hand was steadying the baby, as Jake looked down, face mixed with confusion and awe.

Regina could not resist asking, even though she could make a very good guess, "Who's that?"

"Me." Sam said, simply, pulling the blanket she was using up a bit.

"Oh." Regina began, and Sam's expression was devoid of any special inflection as she met Regina's eyes. Regina worried that she might have overstepped, though, when she asked "Have you always been together?"

Sam replied, "Always." She said, waiting a second to add, "Well, college, and...ex-except for when I came here. And Jake will be leaving in a day or two."

"Brat, that's...news to me." His voice was soft.

"Well, you can-can't stay forever. You're needed at ho-home. Sam stammered more than usual when she was talking to Jake, "With your family."

His tan face went chalky. Jake bit back a reply, Regina noticed, and tucked the blanket tighter about them. Regina shut the book, and passed it back to Sam, who took the heavy book and frowned at it, as though she couldn't bear to look at it. She dropped it on the floor next to the couch with a heavy thud, and Jake looked at her with shock and hurt plain on his face.

When Regina left the room to begin to collect her things after another moment of chit-chat, a conversation began in the other room. Regina tried to ignore the soft argument. Sam insisted Jake was staying out of guilt, that he needed to go. For his part, Jake thought Sam was stubborn, that she couldn't understand that things would be okay, in the end, that they'd make it. Their discussion came to a screeching as Susan came home, and Regina left for the night.

_Cause today my world slipped away _

_we buried the plans that we made _

_and tonight I'm alone and afraid _

_cause today my world slipped away _

_All my friends say I'll make it alright _

_I'll recover and start a new life _

_but that'll be so hard to do..._

_Today My World Slipped Away_, George Strait

That night was one of the worst Jake had ever experienced, even considering the last two months. Sam was drained from therapy, she threw up everything she ate because of the pain medications, and the headache that made her sick to her stomach. Jake discovered that it was the headaches that were responsible for making her so sick, at least in part. He'd assumed it was the medication, but he'd bet his life it was the pounding headache more than anything else. She couldn't get comfortable, even with him there, so they sat, together, side by side. Around two in the morning, after Jake had come back to her room, and held her in silence, Sam began to sob.

"God, Jake." She admitted, touching her head. "This sucks."

"I know." And she knew that he did. She was comforted by his frank honesty, even as it reminded her that he needed to go, needed to understand that things were not what they had been.

"I'm scared." She blurted out the word, elaborating, "Scared. And I think. I think. We need to talk." Sam didn't know where to start. She needed to tell him, tell him that the life they'd hoped for, the life in the book, wasn't possible, not anymore. She didn't even know what her life was, anymore, beyond this hospital bed. She'd realized that her old life wasn't hers, anymore, and that it never could be again, while Regina had been flipping through the album. There would be so much, so much, he'd be leaving behind if he'd stayed here. He needed to go. He wasn't consigned to this half-life, not like she was. She wanted him to stay more than anything, but he needed to go, because if he was here out of guilt, then it was worthless. As worthless as her life felt, flipping through pages of horses and rock climbing, and horses and camping trips, and horses, and cattle drives, and horses. She had lost everything important in those pictures and it made her angry, and scared her so much.

"Okay." He nodded, prompting her to continue.

"You need to know this wasn't, isn't your fault." Sam asserted, starting with her first concern, "If you think it is, you leave, first light. I don't want you here out of guilt." Sam continued softly, "I want you to..."

"To?" He prompted.

"To be here because you choose." Sam looked at her lap, unable to believe that her heart overpowered her mind, and directed her words. It wasn't what she'd planned to say, but in for a penny, in for a pound. "Not because you're obligated."

Jake passed her a tissue, so she'd stop using his side of the blanket to dry her tears. "Brat, I am obligated."

She shook with fury and words that wouldn't form, balling the poor kleenex in her wobbly hand, even as her head throbbed intensely. "No."

"Listen, I am." Jake said, "I am, because I care. Because no matter how this happened, it did happen, and damn it, would you do any less for me?"

"N-no." She was resolute.

Jake's reply was equally as resolute. "Then don't push me away, Sam."

"We'll need to talk about this one day." She warned, knowing that there was so much she needed to say. She wasn't the person she used to be, somehow, even though she still felt like she should be. He cared about that girl, that strong, powerful, woman, not the lump who cried herself to sleep every night before he came here. "It probably won't be pretty."

"Yes, okay." Jake agreed, "But not at three in the morning when there's vomit in your hair and my eyes are bloodshot. Just..."

She was silent, unable to explain what she was thinking, as Jake flopped back to stretch out. There was no pretense of him going back to his own bed, and she was glad for at least that sliver of truth between them.

"Hey, Brat." He said, hopefully, taking her hand, "Let's get some sleep, okay? Maybe we can do something crazy this weekend."

"Yeah, you can call my father and tell him you're here. Still." With that, Sam moved stiltedly onto her side, into the bed, and prayed her nighttime prayer, her hand intertwined with Jake's. After a moment, she pulled it loose, and placed her hand on his chest, falling asleep moments later. Jake followed soon after.

She had to find a way to tell him that her life was different now. But...she knew, as soon as Jake realized what she had realized this afternoon, that what had defined her life had been ripped away, leaving only pain and shadows, that he would leave. He had the right to leave. His dreams were still the same. The important things in his life were waiting for him back in Darton. For Sam, though, they had moved on, leaving her bruised and broken, in their dust.

_Now all them things that seemed so important_

_Well, Mister, they vanished right into the air._

_Now I just act like I don't remember, Mary acts like she don't care. _

_Now those memories come back to haunt me, _

_they haunt me like a curse._

_Is a dream a lie if it don't come true_

_Or is it something worse? _

_The River, _Bruce Springsteen


	4. Excuse Me, Mr

_You got a lotta nerve_

_to say you got a helping hand to lend_

_You just want to be on_

_the side that's winning_

_Positively Fourth Street_, Bob Dylan

Jake woke to find Sam staring down at him. She looked away quickly as he spoke, voice rough from sleep, "Hey."

He rubbed his eyes and gauged her health silently. "Hi. Guess I fell asleep here again. Sorry." Except, Jake knew, he wasn't sorry. Not really. Not when he awoke from a blessedly dreamless sleep to find Sam, really and truly there, just waiting for him to wake up.

She smiled fleetingly and blew off his apology. "Hmm." Sam moved as quickly as her injury would allow, struggling to sit up. Jake looked at her strangely wondering why she was in such a hurry, but kicked himself when realization dawned. The position she was in hurt. After all, she'd been like that for three hours after she'd gone to the bathroom and come back, and because of the accident, she shifted around more, out of discomfort.

After a moment or two, in which Sam looked like a cat in room full of rocking chairs, someone began to barge in as he climbed out of the bed. Jake realized how Sam must feel, with no privacy, in this place. She was an intensely private person, and he felt another twist of guilt, and a surge of anger at the unfairness of it all. She hated, he knew, having to interact with the world outside her thoughts, outside of who she chose to let inside, so much, just to function.

He moved to sit in the chair, hoping that today would be a good day. Her headache seemed to have recessed back to manageable levels, and she had smiled three times. The last tiny, private, smile faded when Sam stiffened, tense at the introduction of a new person into the room. Jake was instantly on alert as he turned his head to look. Something wasn't right here.

There in the doorway was a petite redhead. The color was obviously from a bottle, but her hair was long and down, not at all like Regina's serviceable hairband thing. She barged in and asserted, "Sam. Time for your meds."

"Just a minute, Edye, p-please." Sam sounded stressed. Her eyes were slightly wide, and she kept her hands still. Jake knew that Sam was in charge of her medication schedule. What she took or didn't take was her business, right down to when she took it. Granted, if she started playing fast and loose with the bevy of pills the doctors had her on, Jake knew he'd put a stop to it, but the woman hadn't even asked when Sam had last taken something. That omission meant she playing a dangerous game with Sam's body. He wouldn't allow Sam to be put in harm's way, not again. Never again.

"Take them now." Edye was blunt. "There's a lot to be done, today. You don't want to spend the day in here anymore. This loafing around, it's getting silly. Getting up and moving around would do you a world of good."

Sam fiery eyes dimmed. "I know." Sam admitted softly, as though she had something to be ashamed of. That woman did not just go there. She did not just go there, Jake's mind seethed. "But...it is Saturday."

Edye opened her mouth to contradict Sam. Jake had had enough of this woman after thirty seconds. Instantly, he had disliked her manner, but now, now he hated her with every fiber of his being. Sam hardly rested, not really, and now she seemed ready to jump out of her skin. His voice was frosty, "She said for you to wait."

The redhead's eyes grew round as she turned her gaze to Jake. "Just who are you? Does Sue know you're here? I can't imagine what Sam would be doing with you." She stressed her words in such a way that Jake almost lunged out of the chair and threw her out of the room. Only his raising held him back as Edye continued, "I'm going into the living room now. Maury is nearly on."

Sam was relieved. She was off the hook. Jake smiled, but there was something off about his expression. Did that mean she was imagining how Edye treated her? She worried that she had, but surely Jake would notice what she'd been feeling from Edye all these weeks. Sam was ashamed. Here, she had been thinking all sorts of negative things, based on how the way Edye treated her made her feel. Jake didn't seem to think anything of it. Maybe she was paranoid. She was no wilting flower. She could handle getting along with anybody.

But surely Jake...surely he could sense how vulnerable Edye made her feel. Sam had never seen that expression on his face. With dawning clarity, she remembered that Edye was pretty, what with her waist length hair. Sam flinched as the door shut with a thud. Jake noticed that Sam winced at the loud sound and frowned. What was that about? They needed to talk about that.

"Jake!" Sam wailed, "She thought..." Sam winced inwardly. She thought that Jake liked her. She thought that he and Sam had been up to things. Now, she would make jabs about that, not that there was anything to make sly and cutting remarks about, only to later pass them off as a joke. But sometimes, the things Edye said didn't feel like jokes.

"I don't like her." Jake's tone was matter of fact. Sam expelled a breath she hadn't realized she was holding.

"She's not so bad." Sam said, at a whisper, "She just sucks the energy out of the room."

"She doesn't need to be here." Jake insisted, searching around for a hairtie. "Where's Sue?"

"Work, I suppose." Sam was noncommittal. "Sometimes she works with the kids who are labeled as disadvantaged at school on Saturday."

"Well, you have me." He said as though that negated the need for Edye. For his part, Jake knew that it did. Having these people around boarded on asinine, no matter how much he liked Regina. Sam could not rest with people in her space. She never had been able to do so, not when company came, and not now. Why should now be any different?

"Oh, and I guess you want to help me around and help me brush my teeth, then?" Sam frowned, dreading the long days that came with Edye's shifts, as she had been since she woke up ages ago, unable to sleep for worry of being rudely awakened. Edye had the habit of slamming the door, saying that the hinge was going, but Sam didn't have any trouble other than when Edye was waking her up. Still, she'd never had cause to doubt someone's word before, and she wouldn't start now.

"Better me than that...thing." He spat. Sam understood now. His expression towards Edye hadn't been anything positive at all. She was glad, simply because Edye's pretty face hid a personality that often felt very cutting.

"Jake." She chastened, as Jake took the larger blanket and folded it quickly.

"She's no good." Jake said, "Trust your gut. I'm not leaving you alone with her."

"She's not going to hurt me." Sam comforted him. She was smart enough to know that she didn't have to allow herself to by physically hurt by anyone.

Jake wondered about that, but said, "No, she's just careless and thoughtless."

"Jake, please." She begged. After a moment, her head stopped spinning, and she decided that life was to be lived. "Out." She rolled her eyes, "I want...to sit on the porch today..." Sam's mind revolted at the idea that she now had to ask for help for something so simple, that sitting like a lump on the poarch was something to be worked towards, planned for.

"Maybe that idiot will see a bug and scream that she chipped a Claw." Jake joked. Still, he didn't leave or call for Edye. He found her a robe on the back of the closet door in the blue walled bedroom. Jake wondered how had she collected so many sets of pajamas over the years. The grey jersey robe was short, but it covered more than the mint sleepshirt she wore. With effort, she shrugged it on and shoo'd him away when Jake tried to help. He found her brush and went to move it through her hair. "Careful of my scalp." She took the brush, and began, with shaking hands, to pat down the wild curls. He wished she didn't try to tame them.

It was then that he really noticed the bloody incision with stitches in it. Well, it wasn't bloody, now, but it was hard to look at for the simple fact that the pain it must have caused her looked astronomical.

He asked her, "Can you feel it?" He needed to understand her pain. Something in him broke when he saw the incision. Something raw and painful surged inside him, deep within his soul, and he felt the urge to leave the door shut, and just hold her. Hold her until this made sense, this world she was battered and bruised, but still managed to smile and rationalize and forgive someone else's poor behavior.

Sam paused, and he felt the shift in her body language as she realized what he was asking about."Nope, the pain medication keeps it numb, unlike the bruises on my arms. She methodically moved towards the edge of the bed, and Jake wondered what they'd taught her at rehab. She'd never really said, but looking on, he could see how differently, how intentionally, she now moved. "Come on, let's go so I can take a nap later."

Finding the wheelchair in the corner, he pulled it over, stepping around back to hold it steady as she moved into awkwardly, Jake agreed, "Okay."

When they entered the living room, Maury was proclaiming that Devlin was not the father of six month old Carter. Edye hooted, "He has his ears!"

Jake and Sam shared a look. So much for basic genetics being a part of Edye's training.

Edye saw them and gave Jake a once over that made his skin crawl. "Well, who are you?"

"He's..." Sam settled for the simplest explanation. "Jake."

"Ah, the boy you call for in your sleep." Edye grinned calculating. "I thought you'd made him up."

Sam blushed, trying to ignore the hidden jab she felt. It was all in her screwed up head, anyhow. "Must be the drugs." Sam tried to deflect.

"Sam. I'm going to get dressed." He glanced down at his pajamas. "Be good." Sam knew he was warning Edye.

Once he was out of the room, the inquisition began. How old was he? Was he gay? Did he plan to stay? Did he have a girlfriend? It was then that the questions began to make sense. Edye was in her early 20s, Sam recalled, though sometimes she seemed much younger. She said she wanted...it was disgusting. It was also somewhat hurtful, Sam thought, that Edye never once considered the fact that Jake was hers. Might be hers, she corrected her mental error. Edye had never considered that Jake might be dating Sam. That was what she meant. Geez, Sam thought, her mind really must be screwed up.

When she confessed Edye's questions, without her thoughts, to Jake an hour later as they sat on the porch, Jake agreed about it being disgusting. Then he shuddered, and the rare visceral reaction from him made Sam smile, though she tried to hide it.

_This old porch is just a long time of waiting and forgetting_

_Remembering the coming back, not crying about the leaving_

_And remembering the falling down and the laughter of the curse of luck_

_The Front Porch Song_, Robert Earl Keen, Jr.

For a time, they sat, silent. It was hot, in a way that reminded Sam of home, but there was a humidity to the San Franciscan street that Sam knew came from the bay.

"Jake, do you miss home?" Sam began, shutting her eyes against the overwhelming sensory input. She reminded herself all that they had taught her at rehab, especially to focus on one piece of input and try to make sense of that before going on to the others. Everything her brain received seemed so distorted at times and focusing was the one skill she was glad to practice at rehab. Sam decided, then and there, to focus on Jake's voice. It had always sounded unique to her. She could pick his voice out of a crowd, like she did once when she and Jen had gotten split up from Jake and Quinn at the fair. They'd all found each other, of course, easily once Sam had heard Jake above the rush of the crowd. Sam fleetingly wondered how she'd handle being in a loud place like the fair, when her brain was having trouble processing normal, everyday, things.

Jake looked quickly at her, and smiled, hesitantly, as he saw her leaning back in the chair, like a cat, eyes closed. "Should be asking you."

"Really." Sam pressed, though she didn't move a muscle or open her eyes.

"I'm..." He admitted, pausing as a loud car backfired, "not big on cities."

Sam jumped a foot, and Jake nearly reached out to her grab her. She had looked scared. "Me either." She agreed, speaking softly, after heaving a giant breath, in and out, quickly, "I feel penned up."

"Part of the recovery, I guess." Still, he was careful to watch her as she replied.

"Yeah, but that's part of it." She fumbled around, trying to pull up to sitting from a slight recline that shifting from jumping out of her skin had caused, not to mention leaning back, and took a moment to plant her feet and push down hard, so as to keep from feeling like she was falling out of the chair. "I feel trapped. My words are hard to get out. I forgot what a knife was. I feel trapped in that my time isn't my own. I share air with thousands of people. I just...want to go home." Her voice broke, "Jake. Sleep in my own bed. Ride..ride my own horse." She bit back tears, "Or a horse. But I can't even sit well."

"Give it time, Brat." He begged, softly.

"What's time matter?" Sam confessed her deepest fear. "I'm never going to go home."

"Never, Brat?" He asked. He'd planned, if all went well, that she'd be home by summer's end. If not, though, he needed a new plan. There was a solution to all of this that he was kicking around, but he needed to hear back, yet. He hoped that he'd have some word by Monday, and they could go from there.

"My father..." She looked away from his mustang eyes, "sent me here."

"Only for medical care." He gently reminded her. Wyatt was being a bit thick right now, but he was hurting, and even Jake, as much as this killed him, couldn't deny that Sam needed close access to the rehab center, "You couldn't get nurses and stuff at home."

"Oh, and we'd miss the Claw." She scoffed, adding. "I do like Regina."

Jake smiled, "She's something."

"I'm just..." Sam returned his smile, "glad you went crazy and came here."

He nodded. "Rather be in this city with you...than at home knowing you're here with the Claw."

Sam smiled, and they sat in companionable silence for a time, watching the city move past their stoop. There were so many things that passed by their stoop that Sam had never seen before, and frankly, she never wanted to see, loudness and sights and smells, that set her on edge and made her hyperaware. In her mind, home was a private space, a place you could be free, not a place you had to constantly be on guard, ready to go, no matter what. She felt constantly ill at ease, and she wanted to relax. But she knew that would never happen, not with the Claw lurking in the background, glaring at her, nor with the myriad of people who were so loud that they sent her heightened startle reflex into overdrive.

_Woke up in the city stepped down on the curb_

_To the strangest lookin' people and sounds I've never heard_

_It ain't no place for a country boy, it ain't no place to be_

_It might be fine for a city boy, but it ain't no place for me_

_Ain't No Place for a Country Boy_, Chris LeDoux

A while later, Sam was reading Jake's book out loud. The OT and speech therapists said reading out loud would help many facets of her recovery, but Sam knew she sounded like a psychotic fourth grader with a smoking problem. Jake didn't say anything, though, about her stammer, that while fading around him, made her self conscious, or the way she fumbled around in general. She had so many issues, but Jake didn' seem to care. Jake, Sam supposed, was doing what he thought he needed to do, listening like her reading was fluid and her body didn't act like it was a puppet on messed up strings. In fact, he seemed to be listening intently until Edye came onto the porch for the fifth time. She'd interrupted a lot during their stay on the porch with chatter and just made Sam tired.

Sam noted that Jake just acted like she wasn't there, like Edye didn't figure into their dynamic at all. Edye, it appeared to Sam, was persona non grata in Jake's eyes. He was polite, but barely so, and spared her no consideration, that normally, he would extend to a woman as her due. He didn't, for example, stand up when she came into their space, though Sam knew Max would have his head for it. It was like he wasn't worried about her reactions at all, which in the past had been pretty intimidating in the last few weeks.

Gathering her courage, Sam asked her to go inside while she spoke on the phone to her friend, loudly, and with lots of hand movements that made Sam feel like Edye's arm was going to careen into her, even though the woman was across the porch they shared with Mrs. Ziller who lived upstairs, trembling as she did it. She had just wanted some alone time, but she knew it wasn't worth it, not with the look that crossed Edye's face. The woman retreated, but muttered, and returned, moments later, anger clear in her eyes. "I heated up lunch."

"C-Edye, that's okay. I'm a bit...sick." Her head was pounding, but Edye didn't need to know that. She was always so loud when Sam had a headache, which was all the time, really. Her headache never went away, just ebbed and flowed, like the sea. "The air helps, though." Sam just wanted her to go away.

Jake moved closer to Sam, speaking only to her, "Maybe you should have some toast or something."

Sam looked to Edye, "What did you heat?" Cinnemon toast sounded pretty good, actually.

Still, Sam knew, there would be no toast, not if Edye had heated something. Last week, she'd made the mistake of asking for a banana after Edye had made something else without asking Sam about it, as though she were a baby who had to be fed, and Sam thought she'd reacted as though someone had shot her cat.

"The cassorole." Edye nearly spat.

"Ugh, maybe..." Sam began, knowing her hands were starting to shake. She prayed she could steel her hands and come up with a kind way to say no. There was no way tuna noodle, leftover's of Sue's, would sit with her. She just wanted this to be over.

"Come on, Sam." Edye ordered, cutting her off. "Just eat it."

Jake gave the Claw a death glare. "She doesn't have to do anything."

Sam nerves grew, her fight or flight reaction kicking in. Her heart was racing. But Edye again, hadn't consulted Sam about what she wanted, or even was capable of, eating. This was her life now. She lived a life in which even food that she didn't ask for was something she was supposed to take and be glad for, else she'd be left with nothing. She had not done the work to make the food, and so... "I'll try some." She had never been so lazy, and Daddy always said, if you don't share in the work, you don't share in the choices.

An hour later, Sam regretted those words, and regretted that she felt so worthless. She was sweating, and she needed to throw up. Lunch had been tense beyond words."Jake..." She whispered.

He understood her plea, and Sam made it to the basin in time. "I'm sorry...sorry...sorry..."

"Brat. Just breathe." He looked to Edye, standing in the doorway of the bathroom, her face void of any ounce of compassion or urgency. Jake said, slowly, "Do your job and get me a washcloth."

"Jake she'll get mad..." Sam begged him to stop, clutching at his sleeve when she felt off-balance.

"Who cares what she thinks?" He was loud enough to ensure that woman heard, but there was a tenderness to his touch that contrasted the anger in his voice.

Sam whispered after retching again. "When you go..."

"I'm not leaving you here with someone who has the bright idea to force casserole on you when you can barely eat rice." There was the anger again. "I'm not going when you can't speak up without getting scared."

She was trembling when she finished. "I'm sorry."

"Me too." Jake was sorry. Sorry that this was his fault. Sorry that this had happened. Sorry that she was keeping what was really going on with her and Edye from him. He would never be sorry, though, for her strength and her goodness, no matter how much he wished it wasn't being tested like this, by this accident and the woman in the other room. He helped her as she stood, and almost panicked as Sam washed her hands as she almost lost her balance as she leaned against the vanity. Once she was done, he took Sam's damp hand in his, "Come on, nap time."

"You just want to get away from the Claw." She said, warily at a whisper, as though the woman could be lurking in the corners like the spider she was. Jake supported most of her wobbly weight against his warm body as they worked together to exit the bathroom. Sam nearly cried at the idea that he might be mad at her.

"Darn right." He replied, brushing a strand of her horrible hair away from her eyes. He paused, raising his voice to ask, "Where's that rag, Edye?"

No rag appeared, and Edye didn't even have the grace to look castigated as she appeared and replied, "I wasn't sure if Sam wanted it." Jake closed the bedroom door rather forcefully behind them, leaving her alone. Sam felt an immense sense of relief when his body cuddled around hers, whispering everything about nothing as she fell asleep, feeling more aware of her surroundings and place in space than she had in ages. Edye could wait. Jake would not, she knew, now that her heart had stopped pounding, let anything happen to her. He never had, and she knew he never would. She was...safe. Yeah, Sam decided, she could sleep.

_And I don't need no one _  
_To tell me 'bout a girl of mine_

_I don't care who you are _  
_So don't explain _  
_I don't want a thing from you _  
_I don't want to give you nothing too _  
_Mr. Big_, Free

Jake sat in the chair after Sam fell asleep, going over and over their day. He was angry. He didn't like to be angry. He was so angry, angry in a way he'd never experienced before. That woman was hurting Sam. Edye wasn't evil, just abrasive and loud. She was uncaring, and totally unobservant of anything Sam tried to say. He wanted to put his foot through the TV so the loud noise wouldn't bother Sam. The woman had the guts to get angry when Sam asked her to shut it off while they ate lunch. It was Sam's Aunt's house, and even if it weren't...

His mind was flooded with information as realizations hit him. What was the most upsetting were the power plays, the passive aggressive attempts at putting Sam down, only to fall back on the 'Sam's in charge' card when Sam really wasn't able to focus on making decisions. He was also worried about Sam. She was so gutsy, but around Edye, she backed down in a way he'd never seen. It made him wonder what had happened before he got here, and made the knife twist in his gut even deeper. Well, if his new plan worked out, there would be no more of this.

The phone rang, cutting off his train of thought. Jake answered, avoiding the Claw, who was on the cell phone, as usual. "Hello?"

"Jake?" Wyatt's tone was questioning.

Jake froze, but replied, as though he were calm, "Hey, Wyatt."

"You're still in San Fransisco?" The lean man asked. That was his first question? Not, 'How's Sam?' or 'Where's Sam?' or 'Will you open the door for me? I'm here.'

"Yes sir." The sir caught in his mouth, but he said it. Perhaps he was being too harsh on Wyatt. He didn't know how Wyatt could do it, now that Sam was gone. He wondered how Wyatt had even continued to live after Aunt Lou died. He knew he'd been in a bad way, in so short a time as wo months without...Jake shook away the direction of his thoughts on the end of the line. He had every right to be here in San Fransisco. Wyatt, he was forced to admit, had the legal right to direct Sam, much as it galled him, but Wyatt had not one ounce of say in where Jake went, or what he did. Wyatt could send Sam to Alaska, and he would have no say in the fact that Jake would learn to ice fish.

"I don't like it." Wyatt declared as though that meant something to Jake, "Sam needs to recover."

"I know." Jake prayed she would as he spoke the words.

Jake, when asked how Sam was, was honest. He didn't know that Sam had been spackaling the truth to suit her father. Therefore, it wasn't a pretty conversation, simply because Jake didn't sugar coat anything. After a few moments, the discussion grew heated in a way that made each word icy and sharp. Barely restrained barbs were exchanged, and after slamming the phone down when Wyatt ended the call, Jake grew angrier still. How dare Wyatt care about anything else than the fact that Sam was injured? How dare anything else be a consideration in that man's life? How dare he try to guilt Jake into coming back home, as though there was any reason that could compel him to do so? How dare he try and say that whatever Sam needed to do, she was better off handling without Jake there, as though she were to be punished, isolated, like a child put in the corner.

Wyatt had been his hero, all his life, but no hero acted like this. Heck, no man with any honor put blame on a woman he was supposed to die for. Jake was let down by a man he'd idolized for nearly two decades. His rhetoric had felt very shallow and self centered, and Wyatt had seemed defensive, and then had the lack of spine to get angry at Sam for not telling him the truth. What was that? He'd grown angrier still when Jake had called him on it.

Sam was here, fighting her way back to normal, and there were so many obstacles in her way, from basic functioning to the addition of the Claw. How dare Wyatt add to those burdens? How dare Wyatt consider anything else than what Sam needed? To that end, if forced to admit it, Jake couldn't understand why she was sent away into the care of the Claw. As nice as Sue and Regina were, they weren't her family...not in the way, well, he was. And all of them, he quickly thought, turning back to the bedroom. It was his job to take care of her, to protect her, and people tried to get in the way.

He could almost understand Edye's pedantic little power trips. Edye knew she'd never be half the woman Sam was, but where did Wyatt get off? Jake hoped that Wyatt knew that if he really pushed, and tried to take Sam from Jake, there was no telling what Jake would do.

_And I feel like a stranger from another world_  
_But at least I'm livin' again_

_There were nights full of anger, words that were thrown_  
_Temper that is shattered and thin_  
_But the moments of magic are just to short_  
_They're over me before they begin_

_Well, I know it's time, one big step_  
_I can't go, I'm not ready yet_

_Til I am myself_  
_Til I am myself_  
_Til I am myself again_

_Til I am Myself Again_, Blue Rodeo

**The title references Ben Harper's "Excuse Me, Mister," not No Doubt's song of the same name. **

**Thanks to Ashley VK and Jumping Arabian for the guest reviews. **

**Please feel free to review with songs you'd like to see in the fic as it moves along. **


	5. The Needle and the Damage Done

_Trouble he will find you no matter where you go, oh oh_

_No matter if you're fast, no matter if you're slow, oh oh_

_The eye of the storm or the cry in the morn, oh oh_

_You're fine for a while but you start to lose control_

_So don't be alarmed if he takes you by the arm_

_I won't let him win, but I'm a sucker for his charm_

_Trouble is a friend, yeah trouble is a friend of mine, oh oh!_

_Trouble is a Friend_, Lenka

Sunday evening, Sam found herself sitting on the couch with Sue and across from Jake. They'd eaten, and talked quite a bit. Sue was lively, as she always was, and the evening was fun. Even though Sam felt funny, she didn't say anything when it was to laugh, or to speak overmuch. It hurt to do anything, these days, and she was no whiner.

"Honey, are you going to finish your soup?" Sue prompted, looking from Sam to her bowl of Progreso. If only she could get up, Sam thought, she'd cook. She sucked in a lungful of air, and paused, holding it for a second. Sam's heart began to race, realizing with dawning clarity that it was hard to breathe. A rush of panic hit her, but she tramped it down.

Sam barely resisted screaming. Her head felt so funny, but she reined in her poor impulse control. She could handle this, without giving in to her injury. "No." She said, "Thank..." She inhaled again, but it felt sharper, and shallow, somehow, than even moments before, "you."

Sue turned to look at her as she inhaled. "Are you cold?"

"No." Sam exhaled, "Wh-hy?"

"Your lips are blue, Sam." Sue said.

Jake was there, before her, then, demanding, "Let me see your fingernails."

Sam glanced down, and shoved her hand under the blanket quickly, before he could take it in his own. Sue noticed her actions, and put two and two together to come up with four, obviously growing alarmed at Sam's shallow breathing and the lack of color to her pale skin. "Do you want to call 911 or do you want to go to the ER?"

"I'm..." inhale, exhale, Sam told herself, shifting her gaze to her Aunt, rather than her lap. "Not." It had just started, and she was so tired. So tired. Where was Jake? He'd gone somewhere. Where'd he go? He was just here!

Jake cut her off, returning with her shoes in his hand. "You have 30 seconds to make a choice."

She focused on breathing. Autocratic jerk. She was fine, but suspected she wouldn't like the call he'd make. Why she knew he'd take charge over Sue was unclear, but she knew all the same that he would, and he would, as always, overreact. Jake slid on her sneakers, and said, "15."

"Fine." She was really light headed anyway, she realized, and she wished he'd shut up. She sucked in a lungful of air, just to force her decision out. "Go."

"All right." Sue said, moving to grab her bag, relief evident in her tone.

Sam had to tell them. She just had to tell them, she couldn't go. She couldn't, not when she was so tired and they hadn't finished their dinners, dishes half eaten on the coffee table. The hospital made her so tired, and she was so tired now, plus Sue needed to eat, and Jake had lost weight. "I..."

"Sam." Jake replied, helping her up, "Complain once we're sure your lungs aren't filling with fluid."

Sue opened the door. "We'll take the car."

"Can't..." Sam said, "I'm tired..."

Sue said, "Breathe, Sammy."

She inhaled, over and over, but it wasn't enough. There wasn't enough air, not even when they got out to the porch. This city didn't even have enough air. How could people live like this, Sam wondered.

The car ride was tense. Jake took Sam's pulse. He worried doubly when he realized that she was too out of it, to focused on breathing as they took the three minute drive, to notice that he was taking her pulse. The drive seemed aching slow, to Jake, even as Sue got them there quickly, faster than an ambulance would have, he hoped. He didn't know response times here. There was so much he didn't know.

As they drove, he thought of all the things that it could be, as Sam sat next to him. It could be anything with her lungs. It could be acute pulmonary edema. His EMT training and biology classes kicked in, mind spinning. What if they'd misdiagnosed some of the symptoms after the accident as normal? Then it could be pulmonary fibrosis, or pneumothorax... What if it was her heart? It could be anything, pericarditis or even some form of cancer. His rational mind kicked in as Sue made a sharp right into the hospital complex. He would have noticed something like cancer, surely. She would have exhibited early symptoms, lethargy, pain, weight loss...

Maybe it was hypotension. Her diet had gone from what they were used to at home to barely subsisting as she recovered from massive trauma. Massive trauma that had been, at the end of the day, his fault. He should have never let her work on her own with Blackie. So what if the horse's name had been a joke between them, that she was 16, that she'd handled many training exercises before Blackie's, that Blackie was, finally, at the age of 16, the first horse that had been wholly hers from birth. None of that or the safety measures he'd thought he'd had in place, mattered now.

He prayed it would be something simple, but Jake didn't know. He didn't know. No one spoke beyond making sure Sam was okay, with them, alert, as they walked into the emergency room, thankful for the metropolitan hospital's valet parking.

Once inside the hospital's brightly lit emergency room, they were swept away by the triage system, as though Sam was nothing more than a box on a conveyor belt, a commodity, a known quantity. The intake desk nurse looked at Sam, barely alert and leaning forward to gain a breath, and called for someone called Inez. Inez, clad in blue scrub pants and a duck themed top, quickly appeared, as calm and cool as a breeze, and ushered them into a tiny room just past a doorway aside the desk.

Sam grabbed onto the oxygen mask as soon as it was placed over he face in the small room that contained two chairs and a computer desk, and gasped at the onslaught of air. Jake was numb. Normally, hospitals were invigorating to him. He loved the rush, but now that he was on the other side of the patient-provider divide, that this was his family on the line, it was completely different. He couldn't process the shifts in light, the noise, in the questions Inez was asking. His heart stopped though, when Inez said to Sam, "Do you have a DNR?"

In a moment of horror, Jake remembered Mr. Tyrell. He'd gone to his house as part of the EMT crew, only to have the man's condition falter as they got to the regional hospital's ER. Jake was glad they'd gotten him there in time, certain he'd be fine and back to his prized herb garden within days. He remembered watching as the doctor stepped back from the man's failing body, unable to do anything to save him, only to make him comfortable in accordance within the specifics of his documented DNAR and his end of life wishes. Sam replied with a shake of her head and he exhaled mutely.

Jake realized with dawning clarity, that he didn't know everything about Sam. He didn't. Everyone said he did, that they knew each other better than they know their own selves, but that wasn't true. He had no clue what her end of life wishes were. That wasn't exactly a conversation you had over a campfire at the annual cattle drive, now was it? What was he to say, "Brat, pass the coffee, and by the way, how do you feel about death?"

Jake turned away from the sickening turn of his thoughts. She wasn't dying. She'd be fine, judging by the expression he caught flashing across her face when Inez mentioned bloodwork.

Sam nodded lamely after the distaste left her pale face. "Fine." She yawned, "I'm tired."

"Well, I'll see what I can do about finding you someplace to rest." Inez said, gently. "It's going to be a while, Samantha." Inez confided, "We're down three x-ray machines due to a computer error."

_Sometimes I need a little sunshine_

_And sometimes I need you_

_Heaven knows I need a little_

_Hope for a better day_

_A little love to find a way_

_Through this heaviness I feel_

_I just need someone to say "Everything's okay..."_

_Everything's Okay,_ Lenka

Inez excused herself, then, leaving the door to the tiny room open. The seconds ticked by slowly. Sue excused herself, probably to call Wyatt, and Jake sat, watching Sam, watching the monitors as her heart rate evened, and spiked, and evened out, higher than he'd like it to spiked again, and her O2 sats dropped, and rose, dropped, rose, over and over in a maddening cycle. Jake wanted to protect her from this, but how could he shelter her from her own body? His gaze studied her for so long, he supposed, that she finally opened her eyes and said, "What?"

"It's easier to breathe if you don't talk." Jake gently informed her.

"It's easier to breathe..." Sam sucked in another breath, "if you aren't looking at me like that."

He was confused. He hadn't been looking at her in any special way, he knew. His reply was cut off by the appearance of another person in the opposite doorway, the one that led out of the room to the back, away from the ER. "Sam?"

"Hey, Hannah." Sam replied, weakly.

Hannah returned the greeting, pushing a big cart into the tiny room. Jake was glad to use her arrival as an excuse to sit in the chair closer to where Sam was parked, close enough to touch her, if she needed to, or if she wanted to. "Looks like we're drawing some blood tonight."

Sam lifted the mask, but before she could ask, Hannah filled her in, as she fiddled with her cart. "Five vials, I think."

How did Sam know this woman? How did she know that Sam always asked how many vials were being taken? How was this their normal? It was all he could do not to let his hands shake as he rolled up Sam's left sleeve, leaving her right, the one closest to him, available to be held. Sam noticed his hands shaking, because she saw everything, and muttered with a reassuring smile, "It's okay."

But it wasn't okay, not by a long shot. This wasn't okay. It wasn't okay, not when Sam squeezed his hand in pain, and not in joy. It wasn't okay, not when she turned her head, unable to watch as her blood left her body. Jake felt sick, but he couldn't look away. It wasn't okay that Hannah had to avoid several veins because they'd been used so much they were near to the point of collapse.

When Hannah switched the vial, they lost the vein, and Hannah muttered sympathetically. "I won't roll the needle on you, Sam."

"You're too nice." Sam deadpanned. "I know the drill."

Hannah paused, thinking, as she got a clean needle kit out, "Have they looked at the veins in your hands, recently?"

Sam shook her head. Hannah tried to find a vein, but couldn't. After a moment, she paused, "Did your nurse say anything about an IV?"

Sam looked to Jake, a silent question easily read on her face. He replied, "No."

"They'll probably want one. I'll go check." Hannah smiled, "You get a reprieve, Sam." Sam cracked a smile, but he didn't see what was so darn funny about it, or about the fact the woman knew that you could always get blood out of Sam's left arm before her right.

"Jake." Sam whispered, as Hannah excused herself, "You alright?"

"I'm not the one..." Jake began, confused.

"I know." Sam replied, voice shakey from lack of breath, "but you're really emotive right now."

"Are you trying to tell me to calm down?" He asked, taken aback.

"Yeah. Chill." Sam ordered, "We'll be out of here in an hour, and then..."

"Then?" Jake asked, only wanting to hear her voice, hear the promise she gave him for tomorrow.

"Then what do you say to a _Green Acres _marathon?" Sam grinned, licking her chapped lips. "They play 'em all day here. We've got cable, now."

He snorted, but replied softly. "Whatever you want, Brat."

Sam grinned. Who would have thought she'd ever hear those words out of his mouth? When she was not tired, not so horrible feeling, she'd hold them over his head. Or...Sam looked at Jake, who seemed to be processing some emotions she didn't like to see in his eyes, maybe not. It wasn't funny, not that he was scared like this. Sam could feel it, swirling in the air around them, just as she felt immeasurably safer because he was here. She'd give anything for him not to be scared, for him not to try to hide it, because he thought she needed him. She did, she needed him like air, but not at the expense he was putting himself through.

Sue returned then, just as Hannah did, and with her she brought the charge nurse, who reminded Jake of his fourth grad math teacher, a frazzled woman in ballet pink scrubs. The mental connection was amusing, but it quickly faded as he realized her take charge attitude that he'd never seen in Mrs. Hector. Her brisk manner was kind, but not in the least as soothing as she thought it was. Jake saw nothing "quick and easy" about shoving yet another needle into Sam's already bruised skin, nothing "simple" about connecting the new IV line to bags of medications he couldn't identifiy specifically that a doctor had called down.

The charge nurse led them to a room in the back corner of the ER , where Inez came over to work with Sam as the charge nurse left for more important duties. Inez easily assisted Sam into the bed. Jake was, again, taken aback when he realized that Sam knew what the process was, how to compensate for her shortness and lack of ability to jump the miniscule difference that her body needed to get up onto the bed. She knew not to yank on her arm, lest she pull the IV. Sam knew that she had to stay in the center of a sheet that Inez used to help her slide up towards the head of the bed. Sam knew so much that he didn't, and Jake wished that it was him, and not her, for the millionth time tonight.

The moments dragged after Inez pulled the curtain, leaving them fairly isolated in the corner. Sam ended up sitting in his chair, which was completely against hospital regulations, but the bed in the back of the ER was even more uncomfortable than her wheelchair. She'd sat up, using what little energy he knew she had, and said, "I'm getting up."

"Sammy, you can't..." Sue began, worriedly.

Sam ignored her, pulling the covers off her legs. Jake asked, "Where do you want to go?"

"The chair." Sam decided. It wasn't like she had any other options, not anymore. "This bed feels like..." She yawned.

"You sure?" Jake asked.

"I...hurt." Sam confessed softly, tears springing to her eyes. "It hurts. All of me hurts. I have to do something. I can't just..."

"Alright." Jake agreed, gently, allowing her rambling speech to come to a halt. He understood that feeling, at least. The IV pole was easily moved, as was Sam, once the chair was drug over by the bedside so that the oxygen tubing would reach down that far.

Sam sat on the chair, and found that she could easily put her feet up on the ledge on the side of the bed, where the bars attached near the base of the bed. Inez's collegue found Sam sitting there, and looked at Sam with disapproval in his eyes. Sam lifted her gaze to the man's, who obviously backed down, and said, "We need to get you for an x-ray."

Sam nodded lamely, and Sue got the wheelchair out of the corner. The transfer was somewhat awkward, as Sam was so exhausted that she almost lost her balance twice. The nurse began to move Sam's chair, once she was settled into it. As the man put his hands on the handles, Sam snapped, "Don't..."

She inhaled again, "I won't...I can..." Feebly, she reached out to grab the wheels, missing the push bar by a few inches. The other hand was taken up by the IV, and Jake saw her visibly wince as she tried to move it from her lap. Jake met Sam's gaze, and for a fleeting second, he thought he saw fear fading in her eyes as Sue spoke.

Sue seemed to understand what Sam was saying, speaking quickly, "Sammy. We'll go with you. Jake can push you, yeah? Give your arms a bit of rest."

Moments later, when the tech was taking the x-ray, Sue whispered in an undertone. "I don't think she likes random people pushing the chair."

"Has she said?" Jake asked, leaning against the wall in the tiny room. He could understand why'd she feel that way. Sam really valued being in control of where she went. She had always felt that way, conceding control only to her horses. Forget it if she thought there was a better way to get somewhere, or if another person tried to speed her up or slow her down.

"Sam?" Sue joked, from next to him as they watched through the glass, "Volunteer information? Should we have you checked out, too?"

_Someone's knockin' at the door_

_Somebody's ringin' the bell_

_Someone's knockin' at the door_

_Somebody's ringin' the bell_

_Do me a favor, open the door and let 'em in, let 'em in_

_Let 'Em In, _Paul McCartney & Wings

After the x-ray, Sam was given an actual room, not far from the ER, with actual walls. Well, Jake assumed there were walls, given that he wasn't allowed back there until Sue got back from the bathroom. Sam had fallen asleep, and the nurse wouldn't wake her long enough for him to get her permission to be back there. It galled him, beyond belief. Granted, it had been less than fifteen minutes, but it was fifteen minutes that Sam was alone in a place she hated. She wasn't there to touch, to make sure she was okay. He couldn't hear the more even sound of her breathing, assure himself that she was okay, because he was stuck here under the burning gaze of Nurse Rached.

Sue returned, almost walking right by him, on the way to Sam's room. She stopped short, "What are you doing out here?"

Jake unfolded his tired frame from the plastic waiting room chair at the end of the hall, right next to the nurse from hell. "Ask Nurse Rached."

There was a horrified gasp from the desk, as well as smothered giggles from a few other nurses who were also working there. Sue's face cleared of confusion as compassion took its place, "I'll put you on her visiting paperwork."

Jake wondered how Sue had the authority to do that, but nodded, unable to resist looking at the nurse with a 'Did I not tell you?' look in his eyes.

As they walked down the hallway, Jake had a thought. He really should go and wait for Wyatt, or at least go where he get some reception and text him the room number so that he'd have it when he got here. They'd been drug from pillar to post tonight, and he knew Wyatt probably would have an easier time of finding his way to Sam if Jake helped him out in getting through the labyrinth that were these hallways. He was mad at Wyatt, undeniably so, but that didn't mean he was unwilling to help him out.

"I'll stay with her, Sue, tonight." Jake spoke, knowing Wyatt would also be here. He'd stay if that weren't the case, but Sue needed rest. "You have work tomorrow."

"Honey, I can't leave you here." She patted his shoulder, forgetting his bubble of space in her exhaustion, as they walked down the hallway. "You can have the chair."

"You can come back before work." Jake prompted, hating to see her have no sleep at all. She was a nice woman. She had stepped up for her sister's child as though Sam were her own. Their love for each other was evident in their relationship and because of that, Jake knew, in many ways, he loved her, too.

"You're not going to leave her here, are you?" Sue asked knowingly, slowing her pace down the long hall. Jake supposed she wanted to talk. Her let his stride shorten to match hers, but did not reply. There was no response to the question that did not imply the kind woman was an idiot. Instead, he clarified, "Did you call Wyatt?"

"Yes." Sue said.

Jake looked at the clock they were passing. If she'd called when they'd gotten here, Wyatt would be here sooner, rather than later, maybe within the hour. Maybe he should go wait, he thought again, even as he was reluctant to put more space between himself and Sam. "When will he be here?"

Jake's gaze swiveled to meet hers as she asked, "What do you mean?"

He felt, suddenly, bad for Sue. She was so tired that she couldn't follow the thread of conversation. "When will he get in from home?" Jake clarified.

"He isn't coming down, Jake." Now Jake was the one who was confused. He couldn't have heard her correctly. Sue touched his arm as they crossed the threshold. "He wants Sam to call him."

Fury flashed through Jake as Sue hastened to add. "He said to call the second she woke up." But even she must know it wasn't enough, Jake thought. Jake sighed, and plopped into the chair next to the bed, his face revealing the tension he felt.

How dare Wyatt be so callous? How dare he not be there? Jake watched in silence as Sue reluctantly left after the doctor stopped by again, knowing she was scared to go. Sam had come so close to so many issues and complications tonight. She'd avoided a lot, and he knew, medically gotten off easy, given that her respiratory issues were small, and likely to fade in time, but why should tomorrow matter today? How dare Wyatt not get in the car the second he heard? He'd texted his own parents, and they'd offered to drive down. He'd refused, thinking Wyatt would be there.

Oh, sure. He knew logically, that she'd be okay in a day or two. The doctor had confirmed that it was pulmonary edema, though it was a mild case, only requiring some medications and a nebulizer regime, as long as Sam took care to monitor her symptoms. She'd avoided testing because they could make a good guess as to the cause.

But how could Wyatt know that for himself? Wyatt had no clue as to the situation, other than what Sue had told him. He'd probably gotten a phone call when Sue had gone to the bathroom, which made sense to Jake seeing as long he'd sat there with Rached. Still, how could Wyatt know that the doctor had said when he pulled them aside, "I've put in a call to Dr. Francis upstairs at the rehab center. Her lungs should be fine in a day or so." He went on to explain why her lungs had worsened, and that she would need to be careful to breathe more deeply to clear her lungs, as well as to consistently use the nebulizer, once the drug regimens were cleared by a pulmonologist. The doctor had added, "It's not uncommon with people with a TBI to have respiratory issues, though typically you see it more frequently in cases wherein paralysis is an issue. You're welcome to stay of course, though I encourage you to get a good night's rest while you're off." He said, "She's in good hands, and she shouldn't be awake."

That was utter bull, Jake thought. Get a good night's rest? Really? Like Sam was some baby who needed to be tended to in the night, like she was some burden who came with a work schedule, who required time off. Really? He'd stay here, thank you very much. The doctor could shove it. And so could Wyatt. How could Wyatt trust anyone else, without the ability to judge for himself that Sam was okay?

Wyatt thought a phone call was enough. A phone call, when his daughter's lungs had come a hairsbreadth from failing, when there had been fluid in her lungs. He thought a phone call was enough when Sam had stopped breathing properly. She'd nearly topped taking in air, Inez hovering over the monitors for longer moments before the medication took had topped doing the thing that kept people alive. Almost. Stopped. She'd faded before their eyes, a rattle and a wheeze coming from her frail body as she'd gotten weaker and weaker before the medication kicked in. She tried to hide it, but he'd seen the ebb and flow of her oxygenation on the monitor, the dips, and the eventual evening out, but numbers couldn't hide the truth. She'd gotten worse before she'd gotten better, here, tonight, at the hospital. Sure, yeah, rationally, he knew that it was a minor complication and they were merely keeping her for observation to avoid possible complications like a lawsuit, but how could Wyatt think so rationally where Sam was concerned?

His anger, and sadness grew, as he considered the fact that Wyatt wasn't coming over and over in his mind. He considered calling the man himself, but was unable to think of the words to say. He sat, and prayed. The only thing within him that could rise above this crushing fear, and despair, was God, God and the hope that he would understand. He realized, somehow, that he never would, but by God's Grace, he tried. There were no words for what he was feeling, and he was angered, that even for a moment, he was thinking about himself, but there were no words to express the myriad of emotions he was feeling. Thankfully, some prayers did not need them.

_I'm just trying to understand_

_It's all in someone else's hands_

_There's always been a bigger plan_

_But I don't need to understand_

_Learning How to Bend, _Gary Allen

When Sam woke up, a colleague of Rached's happened to be there, and she kindly got everything set up so that Sam was comfortable. Jake was tense with lack of sleep, but he calmed slightly when Sam reached over and grabbed his hand. "Hey."

"You're not supposed to be talking." He said, "Go to sleep."

She glared at him, but spoke softly. "Can't."

"Try." He brushed a comparatively long lock of hair back from her face, so that they didn't interfer with the oxygen tubing. After a second of staring into her eyes, he glanced at the clock. Had he really sat awake this long? "Sue will be here soon. You...have to call your...Wyatt." He couldn't bring himself to call that man her father, angry as he was.

"I can call Dad now." Sam looked around the room, "He's...not here, is he?"

"No, Brat." He said, a note of apology in his voice, "I'll dial."

He handed the phone on the third ring, and made no pretense of not listening in. The conversation was stilted. Sam assured Wyatt she would be fine, and that she understood why he wasn't there, and yes, she was in good hands. Wyatt ended the call first, after about two minutes. When Sam fumbled to hang up the cell phone, Jake yawned.

"I'm sorry." She ventured, looking at him with concern in her eyes.

"What for?" He asked, sitting back in the visitor's chair. It was supposed to be comfortable, but it was about as comfortable as the wooden benches at school assemblies with less width. She had nothing to be sorry for. This wasn't her fault. None of it was.

She frowned, looking at his worn face, "You've gotten no sleep."

He nearly gave his late Grandma Ely's traditonally flippant response of I'll sleep when I'm dead, but he knew in an instant that the moment was too raw, so he just shrugged. Sam knew what he'd been about to say, because she knew him, and said, "Jake, I'm fine."

"How can you say that?" He asked, bewildered. She was far from fine. She'd be fine, if they were home, fine if this never had happened, fine if they'd stayed awake all night studying the wild horses and was tired and worn from that exertion. She was not fine, not while she stuck here, with even more on her plate than before tonight.

"I'm fine." She repeated. With horribly accurate insight that only Sam could lay claim to in his life, she tried to put his fears to rest. "I'm not going anywhere. I never was."

"What happened tonight, Sam. You..." He could not finish. He would not finish. She squeezed his hand softly, and was silent for a moment.

"It happens, the nurses said." She shrugged, even as she blinked tiredly, "I'll deal."

He corrected her. "We will, you mean." There was nothing in this world she'd face alone. There never had been, and there never would be. Statistically, she'd outlive him, and he was fine with that set of numbers. She would live, and she would thrive, and he knew, deep within himself, from the same place that he knew that she was his best friend, that he'd die trying to make sure that that happened for her.

Her grin was electric as she said, "Potato, Pahtahto."

"Mhm." He returned her smile, uncrossing his ankles and pulling his hat over his eyes as he stretched out as languidly as the chair would allow, "Go to sleep."

Sam sat in silence, listening to Jake nod off. She'd come to some realizations that were hard pills to swallow, but Sam had other fish to fry. Somehow, she knew they'd make it. They'd have to. Jake kept insisting that they'd rise or fall together and Jake didn't deserve this life, this life of sitting by her bedside, when there were so many things he could be doing with his own life. She'd had to give up a lot. No one at rehab had said that to her, of course, but she knew. Her days of riding free on the range were behind her. What she wouldn't give, to be back there, just for a moment, just to feel the freedom of it all, for one more second.

But Jake wasn't trapped, not like she was. Jake could go. He should go. He'd eventually have to, she realized, even as it broke her heart. There was something within him that would crumble and die if what he considered to be his home was taken from him. Why else had he lost so much weight, being in San Fransisco? That was the only explanation she could come up with, and the implications did not sit well with Sam. She would not be responsible for taking away the places and spaces he felt were his home.

Sam was scared. Her body was turning on her. It had always been a tool for her, something she'd used without fail. It had always worked, always complied, but now it wouldn't. She had no choice but to cowgirl up, and smile, trying to hide the fear. She wasn't afraid of not being able to breathe, not really, now that she could again, of course. She was mostly just scared for what not being able to breathe normally would mean for her life.

Jake had options, choices, ones he was throwing away. There was very little she could do to change the path she was on, and the powerlessness she felt alarmed her. She'd always felt in control, and at this moment, she didn't know how to put the sense of loss and despair she was feeling into words. Still, he needed to know that she would give anything for this to change, for herself, yes, but also for him.

"Jake." Sam whispered, once she was certain he was asleep. "I'm sorry. I wish..." Her voice, though low, clearly wobbled, "But wishes aren't horses." A single tear dripped down her face. Now, it was clearer than ever, that her wishes would never be horses again.

_All we can do is keep breathing_

_All we can do is keep breathing_

_All we can do is keep breathing_

_Keep Breathing, _Ingrid Michelson


	6. One Headlight

_Now that I'm losing hope_

_And there's nothing else to show_

_For all of the days that we spent_

_Carried away from home_

_Some things I'll never know_

_And I had to let them go_

_I'm sitting all alone, feeling empty_

_Pressure, _Paramore

Monday morning dawned brightly illuminating the large windows Sam stared out of as she waited to be released from the hospital. She hated hospitals, but on the upside, the solitude did give her ample time to think. Sam thought over her realizations as she stared out the window in her hospital room. The nurse, Jala, was stripping her bed, and smiled at her fleetingly as she stripped the sheet from the bed. Sam smiled back, and turned her gaze to the window, to look out over parking lots and the traffic beyond.

After a moment of looking over the bustle, her thoughts flew forward in her mind and she reviewed the events of the night, even if they had only been in her mind. She shook her head. So much of her life existed only in her head, now. No wonder she always had a headache, Sam thought wryly.

Sam decided last night, or rather, early this morning, to suck it up. She was above feeling hopeless. Gram hadn't raised a whiner and the girl she had raised was stronger than giving into to hopeless despair. Except, she really wasn't, the traitorous echoes of her heart whispered. Sam felt, in the quiet, overwhelmed by feelings of loss, not only of what she'd had in the past, but would never have. She would never again have her brain exactly the way it was, nor would she ever approach life in the same way, even if she ever did do the same things. If she were completely honest with herself, Sam knew that it was highly unlikely that her body would ever physically be the same. Weeks later, she still felt uneasy in the world, uneasy in her skin in a purely physical way.

On the bright side, she was starting to feel what could only be the beginnings of curiosity, even though it made her her uneasy to explore it mentally because she worried that might mean she was giving up, giving in, admitting defeat. She knew she'd never do that. Still, Sam's heart had unanswered questions. Had this pain, this experience, shaped her? Who was she? What did the changes in her life mean? The world around her felt different, right down to the sensations she experienced, and Sam didn't know if he senses would ever modulate. She had to give up so many things and the ability to experience them as the person she used to be. Everything was different, Sam knew, and there was very little to build a new frame of reference left within her. Using the last bit of grit she possessed, she'd made up her mind to allow herself to wallow in her loss once she was better equipped to deal with it, when she'd gathered more information about how things had changed.

Still, it was sobering and painful to acknowledge the darkest of the facts about her current circumstances. Every dream she'd ever had was gone, as they had been wrapped up in things she could no longer do. Train Blackie herself? Gone. Manage River Bend one day? Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. That latter obviously hurt the most, or at least she knew it would in the long run. River Bend was everything to her. The land, the work, was in her blood, in her soul, in a way that would never change, and she worried that her connection with her land was damaged, or would be, in some way. She had lost weeks, weeks of being at home, weeks of being involved in her land, in her home. Gram didn't say much about what was going on, and Dad seemed intent on focusing on her health, her healing in San Fransisco.

Still, Sam knew there were things she hadn't lost, or would get back, eventually. While getting dressed to be released, Sam had managed to put on her left sock without much trouble. Okay, so maybe it wasn't something to write home about, but it was an improvement. Even Jala, who had since quit the room, seemed to think so, though Sam hadn't voiced her own opinion of the matter. It seemed foolish, to be glad about the ability to hook the edge of a sock over her toes and reach down long enough to expand it and slide it over her foot without vertigo kicking in, or her body feeling like it was falling due to lack of spatial awareness. Sam hoped it was something, some sort of sign of improvement. Really, socks, Sam thought, were indicative of her main problem. At 5:27 in the morning, it had hit Sam that her main problem was that she didn't have the skills, or the tools, anymore, to make choices for herself, on her own.

Staring as someone started up their car and drove off, Sam found the word she hadn't been able to locate in the dark of the night. She had lost her independence. The word sounded strangled, even in her mind, and Sam gasped, turning her thoughts away quickly. She was not ready to go there. There was no way to describe the shaft of fear that ripped through in that moment, and Sam was taken aback by it. She had not expected fear.

That feeling highlighted another fact. Sam knew she'd lost the ability to predict what was going to happen the next day, the luxury of making plans for herself based on her prediction of future circumstances. She hadn't thought she'd be getting out of the hospital today, the proud owner of a dog shaped nebulizer. It used to be that she knew what each day was going to bring, school, church, ranch work, in varying orders. Not so anymore. Now, Sam had to be prepared for constant change, constant fluctuations, even tiny ones. Her circumstances were longer than the two hours she felt normal, or the five hours she slept. As she mulled it over, she came to see that it was the tiny influences that angered her, the pain in her right hip from sitting too long, the blinding headache that would recede only to make her head throb, because such things had never impacted her so strongly before. Over and over the days were the same, and yet, time didn't feel fluid anymore, not like it used to. There were no patterns, nothing she could count on in an uncertain present, let alone the future.

Moreover, time felt restrictive, like she was playing beat the clock. She was racing against herself, racing to prove to her father that she was well enough to come home, to the doctors that she was doing better. If only, Sam mused, as she transferred into the wheelchair, she could believe the lie herself.

That said, the clock in which she needed to make these choices were running. School was going to start soon. Where would she be going? Where would she be living? She felt so uncertain, in both her own abilities and the things coming down the pike. So much felt beyond her control in ways that it never had before. In many ways, even her reactions to things felt hampered, because she was not even in control of her brain, or where she went, or who helped her. Sam frowned, and looked up to see Jake coming into the room, with a smile on his face.

_Sometimes I feel the fear of uncertainty stinging clear _

_And I can't help but ask myself how much I'll let the fear _

_take the wheel and steer _

_It's driven me before, it seems to have a vague _

_Haunting mass appeal _

_Lately I'm beginning to find that I should be the one behind the wheel _

_Drive, _Incubus

Sam went directly from the hospital room to the therapy ward. Jake got to come along, because, even though he'd gone home to bathe, he'd come back, with a spring in his step that Sam found odd given his obvious exhaustion. Sam was assigned to the pediatric PT ward because sixteen was code for "not yet eighteen" in the eyes of the medical bureaucracy, even though Sam wondered if the rehab facility knew that sixteen was closer to eighteen than it was to eight. Therefore, Sam and Jake made their way silently over to the bank of elevators and rode it down several floors. After a moment of easy silence, Sam spoke, "You can stay...if you want."

He nodded, and Sam again surprised at how relieved he seemed. Jake for his part, was glad to be able to watch, to be with her. He absolutely hated walking away from her, never quite able to assure himself that it wouldn't be two months until he saw her again. Time seemed to be messing with his brain. He knew it wasn't rational, but his feelings were his feelings, and his perceptions were his own. He couldn't deny that his heart raced and his palms sweated every single time he walked away from her.

Thankfully, he didn't feel anything other than interest as they walked into the the large room. Jake felt a second of something unnameable, as he realized he was being admitted into a part of her life that had been previously denied him. There were so few parts of their lives that were separate that it took Jake a moment to understand that what he was feeling was wonder. After another second, he realized that it was simply a more intense pang of something he felt every time she wrinkled her nose in reaction to some thing or other that she was mulling over. Jake knew what it was then. He was learning something new about Sam, discovering some facet of her that he'd previously been blind to.

He stopped short as she did, wishing for the millionth time that she'd swallow her pride and let him push the chair. "Welcome to the seventh circle of Hell."

A girl near them, who looked to be about 13, giggled, nodding shyly.

The room before him looked nothing like hell. It was colorful and bright in a seemingly intentional way. On the far end, away from the reception area where they were, a mirrored wall dominated the space, making it look large and a bright. The barre in front of the mirror was being used by four people. A voice interrupted his musings. "Well, Sam. We can't do much today, but a good stretch might help you. Come on back. You got our cancellation spot today."

Sam nodded at a tall blonde woman wearing khakis and a grey polo shirt with the rehab's emblem on it, "Thanks, Kyla. Come on, Jake."

"Oh, sure, your friend can come." Kyla added quickly. Sam nearly rolled her eyes, the implication was all too clear in Kyla's tone. The bubbly blonde was glad to see "involvement" from someone that Sam "initiated." Sam had snuck a look at her file, one night when some aide had left the computer open, and the case notes clearly had expressed concern to the nurses about Sam's "isolation and reticence to get involved in activities at the residential" facility. Whatever. She was here to work, not make friends.

At Kyla's bidding, Jake sat on the other side of the mat, cross legged, facing Kyla. Sam grinned at his composure amid chaos. Addressing Kyla, she asked, "What's our game plan, then?"

"Stretches, maybe some balance work." Kyla mused, "We're not getting your heart rate up today. If you have trouble breathing, we stop."

She asked Sam to lay back, once she was up on the raised mat. "What we're going to do now is start with your legs, your hamstrings, your hip flexion and extension. We'll rotate so you can stretch out your trunk. Those beds downstairs are awful."

Jake watched Sam's face and looked around when she glared at him mulishly for staring at her. Jake turned his gaze a set of parallel bars, next to mat tables on the floor, most striped red and yellow like the ketchup and mustard bottles at fast food restaurants, one pale green. Interspersed between equipment like treadmills, were more mats, some with bolsters and wedges sitting on the edges.

Jake looked around taking in the murals on the ceiling, careful not to stare at the patients in the room. A scant few were older, like Sam. Most, though, were small children. Their wheelchairs and other pieces of adaptive equipment were colorful and many were playing games, it seemed, as part of the therapeutic process. One little girl made silly faces at him until her mother admonished her. The levity in the place seemed really strange, given that Sam had called this place hell.

Jake watched as the session began in earnest. He was struck again by Sam's strength. She was attacking everything she was asked to with blinding intensity, a single minded focus. Sam was prodded and encouraged to control her movements for some stretches, and was encouraged to be passive in others. In every movement, though, Jake could see what it was costing her. Sam Forester was the strongest, most powerful woman he'd ever come across. Until this moment, though, he'd had no idea to the depth of those facts. Now he saw it for what it was. It wasn't passion that drove her now, he realized, and it wasn't interest. It was steel and fire, a raw determination he rarely saw from her outside of life and death situations up home. The light in her eyes was sharp and it sent a chill down his spine.

He was interrupted, as the young girl who'd made faces at him threw at bean bag at him, and even as her mother apologized, Kyla said, "Looks like Sally's decided you're her friend."

Jake smiled at Sally. Her mother prompted, "Say 'Sorry...' Sally."

Sally complied, but with a grin that informed them all as to her sincerity.

After a moment wherein Jake stared at Sam through the mirror on the wall, Kyla said, "Okay, now sit up."

She backed away as Sam struggled to sit up, from being supine for the extended period. "You have to do this yourself, Sam." Kyla said.

Sam huffed as she sat up, pushing upward with her right arm, "You don't need to tell me things I already know."

Jake spoke, "Okay, Wyatt." It was either speak, or reach out and assist her. The former seemed safer than the latter, given Kyla's hands off approach. He knew that for Sam, doing what she could was a matter of pride, but the fact that she couldn't even sit up from lying down without considerable effort was shocking. At once, he was both proud of her for grabbing the bull by the horns, as it were, and doing this with her humor intact. Jake also felt a staggering sense of amazement. The world thought men like him had grit. He realized that not even a man who spent a lifetime in the saddle working his land, facing down mother nature with nothing but his saddle and rope burns had a thing on Sam Forester, or little Sally with her glittery sneakers and bright blue glasses. She was all of three or four, and yet, she worked hard, for all that her activities were disguised as play.

"Funny." Sam huffed, but she was sitting at this point and Kyla stepped away to grab large ball off of a rack above the refrigerated chests along one wall. Returning quickly, she helped Sam to sit on it and encouraged her to "find her center" Once Sam felt secure, Kyla produced two stacks of plastic cones and asked Sam to reach for one or the other and create new stacks while maintaining her balance. Sam planted her feet, and Jake thought he saw her toes come up for the briefest of moments as she tilted her hips to stay on the ball. He would have smiled, if Sam hadn't frowned and tramped her toes down determinedly. After Sam took all the cones from the pile on the right with her one hand and switched it to the other, placing the cone on the other pile with the other hand, Kyla moved her arms wider apart to make the activity progressively more challenging.

"This is good for you to try at home, Sam, on a regular chair, if you want, because it will help you regain balance and muscle coordination." Kyla spoke, "When your brain was injured, you lost a lot of the skills you had, but you're doing so great at this."

Sam didn't reply, and neither did Jake, though he gathered that Kyla had been speaking for his benefit. The session moved along. They were left off to the side as Sam was working in the parallel bars. She spoke a little as she moved more freely within the confined space, repeating movements over and over, and he replied some, but mostly, he just counted the steps she took in his head. A woman walked by during a period of silence, "Oh, Sam. Good to see you here."

"Hello." Sam said, almost warily. There was a note of dislike in her voice, but obviously the woman didn't hear it as she smiled at both of them and looked at her clipboard before she spoke brightly.

The woman said, "Listen, when you're done here, stop by my office."

"Okay." Sam agreed and went back to what she was doing. In another few moments, Sam lowered herself into the chair like the ones in the reception area that Kyla placed at the opening of one end of the bars. "I'm done."

"Yep. You are." Kyla smiled, as she approached from a few feet away. "You did well. I'll get your chair."

Sam hastened, placing her hands on the bar to pull up, "I can walk."

Kyla just parked the chair in front of Sam. "Try to practice a transfer, okay?"

Sam did as she was bid. Jake stepped back and observed, trying to detach from emotions that swirled within him at the fatigue he saw in Sam's face, under the sheen of perspiration and discomfort. First, she leaned down from the chair and flipped up footplates, steadying her balance by placing her other hand on the seat of the wheelchair, returning her torso to a normal sitting position slowly, inhaling as she obviously dealt with her perception changes. Then, she put her dominant hand down on the armrest of the chair she was sitting and pushed up slowly, to a standing position, moving her hands up to the parallel bars once holding onto the chair made her back start to arch. Sam turned by placing her left hand on the same bar as the right one while simultaneously pivoting. After turning around, she felt for the wheelchair behind her with her right hand, by grabbing onto the armrest, and lowered herself to sitting, Kyla added, "Remember your belt."

Sam swung the footplates back into place with an audible clunk and soundly clicked the belt in question into place on her lap. Kyla backed up Sam, after asking for permission, and stepped aside, reminding her about other appointments with a cheerful goodbye.

They left the room and Jake asked. Sam didn't say anything as he took over pushing the chair as they left the room. "Where we heading, Brat?"

"Turn left here, and right by the elevator." She said, "Then there should be an office."

They found the office, and Sam knocked. "Come in! Oh, hello, Sam. Your chair is ready." Jake's heart stopped. He thought the chair wasn't permeant. Alright, he thought, his mind spinning, okay. They'd deal. This wasn't a huge deal, not if they didn't make it one. As long as she lived as fully as possible, the chair could be a tool for her, and nothing more. But Jeez, he knew this discussion was crushing her.

Sam looked defeated, even as Jake tried to school his features. The lady added, "Now, you know it isn't permanent, Samantha." She opened a file, and passed Sam some papers to sign, which she did listlessly, "You're giving this back. This is a demo chair, a loan, if you will."

Sam passed the papers back and the woman continued. Her tag read Carol, Jake saw. Carol Jenkins, PT/OT Department, Equipment Specialist. Carol continued, "Come back this way, over to the seating clinic, and we'll get you all set up."

She led them to a smaller version of the PT room, with a series of mat tables that opened to a large closet. She wheeled out a chair, and Jake saw Sam's gaze fall from where he was sitting next to her, she in the chair, he on the edge of the mat. He reached out to put a reassuring hand on her knee, but drew it back as he saw his hand was trembling.

Carol discussed the chair in front of them, in a chipper tone, using words like camber and stability. Jake studied it critically as Carol adjusted it for Sam, raising the footplates and adjusting the angle of the back with a simple set of tools based off of measurements and Sam's softly given feedback. The new chair was low to the ground, with anti-tip guards and nobby wheels that reminded Jake of bike tires. Small wheels were splayed out on the front, and the backrest and cushion were black and rigid, almost plastic underneath what Jake thought looked like black netting. "Now Sam, you can still do your walking, but this is much more suited to your needs than the other chair, just until you're back up on your feet." Carol rose, and looked at both of them, with a critical eye, making sure Sam was squared away "Any problems, you can call my card, or stop in, being that you're here most days."

_Well the good ol' days may not return_

_And the rocks might melt and the sea may burn_

_I'm learning to fly, but I ain't got wings_

_Coming down is the hardest thing_

_Well some say life will beat you down_

_Break your heart, steal your crown_

_So I've started out, for God knows where_

_I guess I'll know when I get there_

_Learning to Fly, _Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers

In the car, Sam studied the dash in front of her. It had taken them both a good ten minutes to break down the chair enough to fit it in the trunk. He wished they'd had the Scout as Sam had fiddled with the footrests and handed them to him. Sue had left her car here and taken the train to work so they'd have a way to get home after she'd visited before Sam was released. Jake began, "Brat?"

"Yeah?" She asked, as he backed out of the parking space.

"You..." Jake asked, hesitantly, "okay?"

"No." She started again, "Yes. I'm just...angry. I didn't think I would need the demo chair, and I'm so tired and I didn't do all that much and I just...I'll never be the person I was. Who am I?"

Jake whispered softly, "Brat."

"I know, Jake." She admitted. "I know."

"I'm...really..." Jake hesitated, completely unsure as to how to continue.

"What?" Sam asked, curiously.

Jake found his words. "I want to know how you're feeling."

He wanted to know how she was...feeling? Sam asked with some shock, "What?"

Jake nodded, as though talking about their innermost feelings was normal. Still, he spoke as hesitantly as he must have been feeling. "Just..I can't read your mind with this, and I need to know."

Sam thought for a second. "Total honesty?"

"Have you ever hidden things before?" Jake asked, obviously thinking about every interaction they'd had over the years. Sam sitll felt a little off, about how forthright she'd been with him during their childhood, but he seemed to accept it as normal. Jen had told her once that she was too forthcoming with Jake, and since then, she'd tried, without much luck, to install a verbal filter around him.

"No." She looked at him, throwing her words out in a rush. "Okay. I'm tired. I'm so tired. I'm tired of people being around us all the time. I'm tired of not feeling like I have the right to live my life. Like..." Sam hesitated, "Edye is always this is wrong, that is wrong. And I start to feel wrong. I feel suffocated. Suffocated. Am I still me?"

"You'll always be Sam Forester." He asked, "Who else would you be?"

"Do you remember when I.." She changed her mind, and spoke, "I have nothing that's mine, anymore. Nothing that's just for me. Everything is an extension of therapy, a tool. Walking, eating, sleeping. It all has some meaning now. Meaning and importance that it never did. I just want to sit on a chair because I want to, and not because I'm working on balance." Sam's voice was thick with emotion. There was always some deeper meaning to her actions now, especially that she constantly felt on display, in public, even in private spaces, now that there was nursing care in the house. Her home, however temporary, wasn't private, because it was invaded daily, and became a workspace. There were no lines of public and private, and that hurt so much, caused her so much angst. Nothing was just...hers, anymore. Not her showers, not what she wore. Everything in her formerly private world, felt so exposed, so public.

"I'm yours, Sam." Jake said, honestly.

"I know." She squeezed his hand, the one that rested on the center console, as they coasted down the road, in agreement. "But I need to be mine, too." These few minutes of alone time had done so much for her, and she felt slightly panicked, knowing that time was rapidly closing. She'd almost felt normal when they were trying to stuff the chair in the trunk of Sue's compact car, as they'd been working as team, focusing on working together. It was in that moment that Sam felt some part of her wound heal. They were working together. There was still something she could offer him. The world, her mind corrected. There was still something she could offer the world.

Jake was, yes, taking care of her, but she was doing the same for him, somehow. They had approached a task as a team, and gotten it done, and in many ways it had felt like they were themselves again, banter and all. It was glorious, because there was no one to hamper or interpret their interactions. It struck Sam that a third set of eyes seemed to throw them off in so many ways. This morning, they were just them, and despite the context of their interactions, the simple peace she'd found, riding in an elevator and crossing a parking lot, had felt wonderful. She'd felt a moment of giddy elation she'd tried to tramp down, knowing that in some small way, she and Jake were just them again. So, she'd had to move fast or risk being trapped in the elevator, and had to use the yellow curb cuts, adding time to her journey across the parking lot, but none of that fazed her in the moment. It had been between her and Jake. In other words, whatever had gone right or wrong, had been private and solely theirs.

"Oh, Brat." He didn't know what to say. He'd rather hoped she would find some comfort in being his, just as he did in being hers, but he knew better than to say that, not when he couldn't define what that meant to him in a way that didn't make him sound like a caveman or twist the definition of their relationship oddly. She'd always belong to herself, it wasn't that he wanted to deny her her autonomy or independence. She was, and would always be, her own person. Maybe that was why he'd reacted that way, internally. Maybe, it hurt to see her doubting her own autonomy and personhood.

"Yeah," she scoffed, interpreting his silence for good or ill, "attempting life's real questions when I can't even manage to function."

"I...think you're going to be fine, Brat." He wouldn't let it happen any other way. "And if you aren't, I'll do something crazy, like take up surfing, and everyone will talk about the cowboy turned surfer and not about you."

"Fine, but you'd have to change your name." She asserted, and her contemplative mood faded.

The bargain was struck with his agreement. "Deal."

_Boy, don't you worry, you'll find yourself_

_Follow your heart and nothing else_

_And you can do this, oh baby, if you try_

_All that I want for you, my son, is to be satisfied_

_Simple Man, _Lynyrd Skynyrd

Jake decided that, come flood or fire, he'd made up his mind. After Sunday, there would be no changing his course of action. Still sticking to his guns required some level of deceit that made him uneasy. He'd had to make up some excuse to step out of the room when he'd gotten the phone call he'd been expecting all day. The man had merely confirmed what the websites had told him, and advised him to put the paperwork in the mail without delay. He'd slipped back inside, and grabbed the envelope, setting off for the mailbox to do as the man suggested.

Around the corner, Jake slid the papers into the mailbox, glad that it was the summer before his sophomore year. He still had time to change his mind, to make this choice. He sighed, knowing his parents wouldn't like his choice. That didn't matter, not really, because he was an adult, though he he had begun to envision a rather tense conversation coming up in his future. Turning from the mailbox at the end of the block, Jake slowly walked south, towards Sue's house. So many of the houses looked like the one on _Full House_, and he guessed they were alright, for what they were. It wasn't Darton County, and all Jake could see were bad sidewalks, steep curb cuts, and a total lack of accessibility. How radically his eyes had been opened to the world around him.

He'd told Sam as they went inside after greeting Mrs. Ziller, what he thought of the accessibility in Sue's middle class neighborhood, as she'd nearly tumbled backwards down the steep steps. She'd nodded, and inhaled deeply. "Yeah. But at least they let me out of rehab."

He'd nodded, knowing that five weeks after coming out a medically induced coma, they'd cleared her to come home to Sue's. He'd shown up two weeks after that. It just ticked him off, how incorrectly the world was set up, how different their world was because of the accident, and how much Sam had suddenly become different in the eyes of the world. People looked at Sam, but they didn't see her. They saw the chair, even in places deemed for the "sick" like the hospital. The doctor's ignorant words still made him angry. He wondered how often he'd been exactly like the doctor, wondered how many times he'd been as blind as most everyone in the world seemed to be.

People didn't see Sam's green eyes and crazy hair, or the dusting of freckles across her nose. They saw nothing, and made no effort to see. He felt guilty, for having been so much like that in the past. Punks who would have looked her over with interest now looked the other way. That made his job easier, sure. He didn't need those punks seeing what he saw in her, her stubbornness, her joy, but he knew her confidence had taken a hit.

Still, none of them mattered. He and Sam had sat in the car, once they were back at Sue's, and just talked. They'd just talked, like they always had, while watching the wild horses or driving into Darton. In some ways, the car was their safe zone. They had a tacit agreement that either of them could say whatever they needed to, in the car, and it wouldn't be brought up or repeated unless the other person brought it up, or they were in the car again. Some issues Sam had been considering, like her schooling and trying to go home soon, had been brought out into the light.

They'd made no real decisions, because they couldn't, but they had talked, worked through some feelings and proposed ideas about how to work towards setting up some goals. Sam had said she, which Jake took to mean they, needed to sit down with Wyatt and talk, face to face. Jake hoped it would be soon. He needed to tell Sam about his own plans, but wanted things to go okay in talking to the man, wanted to have both options come to fruition before he made a decision one way or the other. He wanted to have both options before him before he made the call, and jinxed his chances, as superstitious as that sounded.

Maybe it was a bit of a lie to say he wanted to talk over his schooling when he knew that his own mind was made up. He was resolute in his choice. It was his, at the end of the day, and he would make it, following not only his heart, but also his morals. Luckily for him, they both wanted and needed the same thing. He hoped his parents would see it the same way.

Mrs. Ziller had given them a thousand odd looks for sitting in the car, but had watered her porch plants, and turned around to go inside. She was back outside when Jake left for his walk, and he called to her, "Hello, Mrs. Ziller."

"Hello." She replied, pausing in her task, "You young folk are welcome up to my loft for tea anytime."

Jake nodded and thanked her for the invitation. Mrs. Ziller was a kind lady. She, according to Sam, brought food down several times and had sat with Sam on the porch a time or two. He liked her for that, as well as for the music he could sometimes hear floating down from the studio apartment above Sue's larger apartment. She seemed to be omnivorous in her musical tastes, with a leaning towards the music of her youth. Bobby Vinton and The Mamas and the Papas would never grow stale, at least not to Jake. When he returned, Mrs. Ziller was off someplace, or at least, not talking to her plants, and he stood for a moment, wondering how he might tell Sam about his change of plans.

He came back inside to find Regina knitting in the recliner, and Sam sitting on the couch. "Dad called." She said, looking up from a book he knew she'd read a thousand times, as Regina quit the room, looking wary. He wondered why Sam was reading it again. They'd had a good afternoon, but somehow, she was stressed. That book was like her security blanket, a soother, its worn cover proclaiming how often Sam turned to it.

"Oh?" He sat down next to her, causing the couch cushion to rise. She leaned toward him because of the tilt to the couch, and her issues with equilibrium. He took a moment to feel her against him before being a gentleman and assisting her in sitting up.

"Yeah." Sam began, closing the book and avoiding his gaze, "They want you home. Summer's busy. Dad's got a new case." She said glumly. "Pretty cool, he told me."

"Alright." Jake said. He didn't see why this was making her sad. They'd talked not three hours ago about it, and them going home soon, at least for a time, was the best they could have hoped for. "We'll get packed." He made move to stand up, but her hand on his arm stopped him.

"He didn't say anything about me." She shook her head. "It's time, Jake."

"No." He insisted, his voice feeling far away, "Not yet."

"We've had fun, the last week or so. But we were on borrowed time, and you know it." She spoke softly, chiding herself, "It was silly of me to forget."

Jake opened his mouth to speak but Regina called out, having gone into the kitchen when he came in, unaware of the discussion in the other room, "Sam. Mind filling out my sheet?"

Sam rose, wobbily, and schooled her voice. "Sure."

He couldn't follow her, continue this discussion in front of Regina. Regina had no need to be involved in their personal issues, but he did need more information before he started shaking. This was not happening. Jake walked towards the guest room, and picked up the phone on the nightstand. He dialed his phone number.

"Mom?" He asked when someone picked up, knowing that Dad hated the phone as much as he did, and Quinn likely wasn't inside.

"Hi, Jake!" His mother said, "How was your day?"

"Fine, until about ten minutes ago." He said, sitting on the edge of the bed. At her urging, he explained what Sam had told him.

"Jake. We understand your position. We do." Mom insisted, "Dad and I...want everybody home and happy. We do. But, at the end of the day, Wyatt is in charge of Sam, and we can't bring Sam home. No matter how much we want to do that." His mother sighed, "And, yes, we want you home. Wyatt is willing to let you work your own cases this summer."

"That's a bribe." He spat. "I won't take it." What kind of man did she think she'd raised, that such a bribe would work? What kind of fool did they all think he was? Was Wyatt really stooping that low? Surely, surely, some vestige of sense within him cried out, surely he was missing something here. Something had to have been lost in translation.

"Jake, please. Talk to Wyatt. Work this out." She begged, "We will support you staying for a few days longer, but it needs to be agreed upon by everyone."

"I agree." He said through a tightening jaw, "Sam agrees." They all agreed. There. Simple. Done. Case closed.

"This coming from the little girl who tried to stuff herself into your suitcase when you went to visit your cousins." Max laughed, "You two aren't being rational. That's why you have parents, to help you, honey."

"Wyatt isn't doing much to help Sam right now." Jake pointed out the truth as he saw it.

"I won't have you speaking poorly of Wyatt." Max chided, "We don't know his pain, his circumstances."

Jake reminded his mother, "He doesn't know ou..."He broke off, the word unfinished, "Sam's, Mama, and he doesn't know mine." Wyatt had the power to do something. Jake was doing all he could, and yet, he felt helpless. It wasn't enough. He felt consistently at the mercy of others, an odd feeling for Jake, who knew that it was in his DNA to fight for them, somehow, even though he didn't analyze the notion in the moment. Additionally, for his mother to forget that Sam was the one who was the one doing the real work in this situation was ludicrous.

He was cut off before he could gently inform her of that, as Mom did not purse that avenue of discussion. Instead, she asked pointedly the question that she'd been circumlocuting the last few times they spoke,"When can we expect you?"

Jake felt trapped. In her phrasing, there was no way for him to hedge. The guilt that he felt at being torn between honoring his mother's wishes and doing what he felt was right was staggering. He forced a word out from a suddenly dry mouth, "Tomorrow..." and gently hung up the phone, covering his face with his hands.

_Come mothers and fathers_

_Throughout the land_

_And don't criticize_

_What you can't understand_

_Your sons and your daughters_

_Are beyond your command_

_Your old road is_

_Rapidly agin'_

_Please get out of the new one_

_If you can't lend your hand_

_For the times they are a-changin'_

_The Times They are A-Changin', _Bob Dylan


	7. Regular Guy

_All my bags are packed I'm ready to go. _

_I'm standing here outside your door._

_I hate to wake you up to say goodbye. _

_But the dawn is breaking it early morn._

_The taxi's waitin he's blownin his horn. _

_Already I'm so lonesome I could die._

_Leavin' on a Jet Plane_, John Denver

Jake planned to be on the road shortly after Regina arrived for the day. He greeted her as she entered the kitchen, moments after Sue left for work. Jake had volunteered to do up Sue's cup and bowl. Regina stopped short as he washed the last dish, throwing a dish towel overtop the dish colander to allow the contents therein to dry.

"Hello." Regina said, setting down her bag. Inside it, Jake knew, was not only her knitting, but also various medical tools. She kept a close eye on Sam's respiration and blood pressure, now. He forced his eyes away from her bag, wondering how something with cats on it could make him feel such a sting of hate.

"Morning." Jake greeted, trying to go back to work,"There's coffee."

She availed herself of a mug, as Jake wiped the crumbs from the table, and observed, "You're certainly up with the sun." There was a question clear within her observation.

"I've been getting up before six in the morning since I was seven, maybe eight." Jake shrugged, tossing the sponge into the sink after wiping the table.

"Oh." Regina said, slowly, "Why?"

He grinned. "Witch likes her breakfast on time." It seemed simpler than trying to explain to her a way of life she could never truly understand, and he really didn't have the time, anyway.

"You country folk..." Regina said. "If my Rollie had gotten up before noon at your age, why, I'd've never worried a day in my life."

"Speaking of home." Jake said, slowly, grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge, and holding it awkwardly, "I'm going."

"Hm?" Regina asked, slowly, her honest question clear in her tone.

"I should have left twenty minutes ago." Jake said, collecting his keys from a bowl on the counter. "Bye, Regina."

"Goodbye?" Regina followed him from the kitchen to the entryway, "Do you mean to tell me that you're sneaking out of here like some Coyote Ugly?"

"I don't understand the reference." He said, turning to face her. He really had no clue what she was talking about, but he'd turned around, as there was a level of concern in her voice that no gentleman, no person of any integrity, could ignore.

"Do you have a TV?" She cried, " Miss Sam will..."

Jake cut her off, the strain of trying to maintain this facade was killing him. Why couldn't she just let him go? He was trying so hard not to think, not to analyze what he was doing, and Regina wanted information. "I can't wake her up. She..." He began anew, "I..."

"Oh, I see." Regina gave him an assessing gaze, "I see." After sipping coffee, she began, "Look, son. Take it from an old lady who knows, don't you be chicken about this."

"If I'm to make it back, Regina, I have to go." Jake clarified. He had to go. He had to go. He had to, before he called Dad back and told him he wasn't coming. He reached into his pocket, his cell phone was right there. All he had to do was press two buttons, say one word, and he wouldn't have to do this. He could get out of this still.

"Back?" She repeated, quizzically.

"Regina." Jake said slowly. "I'll be back."

"Right." She said. When he left, she added, staring as he pulled away from the curb, "Let's hope so, for all our sakes."

It was cowardly, but Jake could not wake Sam up to say goodbye. He wasn't man enough to look her in the eye, and tell her he was leaving her. So what if it wasn't for long? It was long enough. It was long enough that his heart pounded. He absolutely hated driving away without her, unable to prove, to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it wouldn't be two months until he saw her again. He could not know. There were so many things that could go wrong, between now and the next moment he saw her. So many things had gone so wrong that he could not rely on anything so fluid as fact. The only fact he could cling to was the sense of horrible wrong that filled him as he drove away. There was no denying the fact that he knew deep within his soul. It was wrong to leave her. He nearly turned around again, after he missed the turn off for the interstate.

_I can be alone, yeah, I can watch the sunset on my own..._

_I can be alone, yeah, I can watch the sunset on my own..._

_I can be alone, I can watch the sunset on my own..._

_Merry Happy_, Kate Nash

Sam knew it was foolish, but she couldn't will herself to stop staring at the note before her. She knew what it said. She blinked, hoping that the sleep in her eyes had lied. She knew Jake wouldn't be back for a few days, given the note that she'd seen next to her. It read:

_B, _

_Went home. Be back soon. _

_J._

Well, wasn't that the most informative note ever? A telegram could have contained more information. Smoke Signals. Morse Code. Nevertheless, she rebuked herself for not being able to stop looking at it, tracing the letters of his handwriting. Jake had always had nice handwriting. Most guys, like Quinn, had chicken scratch that looked like either a fifth grader was still learning to write or a serial killer writing out their confession in angry strokes on a yellow legal pad. That wasn't so with Jake. She had once spent hours, when she was learning to write, to make her letters like his, but she'd never been able to do it. He could handle a pencil or a fountain pen with such skill, that her own writing seemed childish, and she was an artist. Or, her mind kicked in, she had been Still, no matter what he was writing with, his writing had always been swooping and sure. His handwriting was everything he'd always been, warm, strong, and woefully, woefully, lacking in information.

Sam crumpled up the note, only to feel a surge of remorse at her inability to control her impulses. Her injury reared its ugly head once again. She'd done her best to reign in her impulsivity, bite her tongue, swallow her urges, but a girl had to have a safety valve. She smoothed out the note quickly, pressing out the crinkles, kicking herself internally. She placed the note back under the pillow she'd found it on, and blindly reached out. She managed to sit up with only two tries this morning, and to swing her right foot out without too much difficulty. Her left was another story, but soon, she was sitting on the side of the bed, her feet dangling over the edge.

Details began to hit her. There, on the nightstand sat her cell phone, and a half drunk bottle of water. It was cool to the touch. She'd woken up in the middle of the night, or what she thought was the middle of the night, mouth dry from the medications and tried to get up. It was no use waking up Sue, after all the woman needed sleep and Jake was in the room. She'd just started to try to shove Jake's arm off of her torso, when he'd reached behind him and placed the uncapped bottle in her hands. "Here."

"Thanks." She returned, downing half the bottle, breath thundering from her body after she stopped drinking, sated with water but starved for air.

"Hm..." He'd acknowledged her thanks, taken the water from her hands, and she'd fallen back to sleep knowing that he'd be there. Her eyes had fluttered open later. Jake's hand had been rubbing her back. Sam recalled sinking into his touch, as though it would never end, and fallen back asleep. She realized, now, that those soft, reassuring touches, ones so innocent in their intent, but so potent in her mind, had been his goodbye.

That was yet another thing she could thank the injury for. Her senses were so screwed up that she was reading things into his touches that weren't honestly meant to be there. She felt comfort, security, and flashes of something she couldn't name when Jake touched her. His touch lingered on her skin, and when she closed her eyes, she could feel it still, warm and active against her nerve endings.

Everyone's touch, she found, had a unique way of feeling. Edye's felt metallic, and sharp, tight. Regina's was kind, quick, and often faded the fastest of anyone. Sue's was warm, like coffee in the air, lingering, overpowering most other touches that she came across throughout the day. Jake's, though, felt like sparkles against her skin, light and bubbly, almost like a good soap, washing away the icky aftertaste other people's touches left on her body. She did her best to ignore how messed up her senses were, but there were times that she did call up his touch in her mind, mostly when her senses betrayed her.

Maybe that made her a masochist, she didn't know. She'd never had to find out. Jake was always there, and now he wasn't. Still, Sam pulled his touch forward in her mind, a visceral sensation that comforted her. She needed comfort sometimes. Was it weak to admit that? She thought maybe it was.

She needed comforting when the world got overwhelming. In rehab, they'd taught her all kinds of crazy things to control the sensations her brain misidentified from repetition to blocking to redirection to control the misidentification, or rather he incorrect reactions to incorrect interpretations. Well, it wasn't exactly misidentification. It was sort of like, her brain's volume meter was broken. Things that should have felt soft felt loud. Things that felt loud were in actuality, quite soft. Volume. Light. Sounds. Noise. But what upset Sam the most was the sensations of movement that seemed so incorrect. She often felt like she was falling, even though she was steady on her feet. She often felt like the wheelchair was tipping when she went over curbs or bumps. It was yet another thing her body was blowing out proportion, just like it had in assessment of Jake's touches.

Sometimes, when Sam's skin felt so tight over her bones, like it was pressing into her to the point that she would explode or implode, Jake would hold her, press his arms around her and she'd withdraw into herself, knowing that she'd be safe when she came back, as she often did at night. Nighttime was when she decompressed. She didn't think he knew. Back at rehab, there had not been that luxury of hiding anything. Matrona had understood all to well why Sam stared at the wall for hours on end, when the aides, therapists, and nurses let her, that is. Matrona had been the one to tell her how to handle the sensory issues she was feeling, and for that, Sam would always be grateful to her temporary roommate. Matrona had taught her to withdraw, when she could, and lie about it, even to herself, when she couldn't.

Sam slid down from the bed, ignoring the brush of the carpet under her feet, even as she wanted to wiggle her toes and spend ages discerning why it felt so nice, when usually, she ignored it entirely, blocking out sensations she worried about. She was so tired of being afraid of things like carpet.

The day began before she could berate herself. It would have to, as Regina was bustling through the door, a hesitant look on her face. "Well, Sam! What do you say we go to the park today?"

_You can listen to the engine _

_Moanin' out his one note song _

_You can think about the woman _

_Or the girl you knew the night before _

_But your thoughts will soon be wandering _

_The way they always do _

_When you're ridin' sixteen hours _

_And there's nothin' much to do _

_And you don't feel much like ridin', _

_You just wish the trip was through _

_Turn the Page, _Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band

Jake was almost home. He stopped along the way for more gas and bought a candy bar. He ate it, ignoring that he felt sick after doing so. "Sam, pass..." He broke off definitely. He was, after a scant few hours, back to the habits that he knew Mom had wanted to lock him up for having, since the accident. He couldn't ask a person that wasn't there to pass him a stick of gum from the glovebox.

He had to stop it. It wasn't healthy, or normal, to be so attached to her. It wasn't normal, no matter how much they cared for each other. It wasn't normal to talk to her like she was there when she wasn't there. It wasn't as if he could easily forget that he had left her. Still, yet, still, Jake spoke to her like that. Was Sam so much a part of his consciousness that it was now unfathomable that she would be anywhere else but by his side?

What was he to say to Mom and Dad? "Yeah. See. I'm doing online classes next semester. Heck Ballard's sure to have space for an intern, and I can't leave again." That would go over a lead balloon, but that's what he was doing. In fact, it was his goal to stop by the sheriff's office on his way towards River Bend.

Jake steeled his spine, gripping the steering wheel. He would stop by and talk to Wyatt. This time, he knew what he would say. There would be no anger on his part, no hurt, no pain. He would not let Wyatt see how much he was hurt and confused by the older man's behavior. He would go to Wyatt Forester hat in hand not out of respect for Wyatt himself, but for Sam's sake. He planned to make their case logically. The rehab people had said that she could soon be doing less sessions at the center. She would soon, within weeks, they hoped, be beyond needing Regina. She was improving inch by inch, even if she didn't see it herself. Insofar as the distance to their hospital... There would be no issues. There couldn't be. But if there were, he could darn well force her to get in the car before the two hour drive became an issue. A vision of the tense three minute ride to the hospital on Monday appeared in his mind's eye. Maybe not. Maybe it was too soon to be thinking about this. He would not give Heck his word about being back anytime soon, Jake decided, as doubt reared its ugly head within his soul. This land, land that was becoming increasingly homelike, could be rough and was often unforgiving.

Regardless of the facts that were passing him by on the interstate, he knew within his soul that Sam needed to be home. She wanted to be home. She missed her horses, her animals, Jen. She missed their parents, her father, Grace. She didn't think he knew that she withdrew within herself, but how could he not? How could he not feel that she was gone from him, even as she was physically right next to him? There was nothing that served as a crueler, starker reminder of what this accident had cost her. There was nothing larger that reminded him of how strong she was. She could face down daily life in the city, one that was so unlike the place she loved, and come back to it, even as he knew that she wished sometimes that this was all a horrible dream, that they'd wake up somewhere, the hayloft maybe, having fallen asleep after going up there to get away from all the people that were at Three Ponies for a cookout. Life was too real, too cruel, for that wish to come true.

His first stop was scary. He parked the truck, and inhaled. Jake felt sick. Here he was, fulfilling a childhood dream. He'd always wanted to work with and for Heck's office, but had never the chance. He had no way to be involved all the way away at school. He'd never seen a way to make his education work with his goals of working up home, but Ballard heckled him every time the man saw him to stop by the second he wanted to get started.

How cruel it was that the worst thing that could happen to Sam was facilitating his dreams. He felt a stab of guilt as that fact hit him. It was absurd, to be doing this. It made him feel like a low coward, to be taking advantage of the situation like this. He was exploiting Sam's pain, her suffering, to get what he wanted, what he didn't have the courage to do on his own. That was the lowest thing he'd ever done, and Jake couldn't bear it. He started the truck again, intending to pull out and leave. This was wrong. There was no other word for what he was about to do. How could he go to Sam and tell her that his childhood dream was coming true, was actually happening, because his mistakes had nearly...taken her from him.

Jake felt a tightness in his throat. He could not cry now. He would leave. He would go. But, what was he to tell Mom and Dad? They needed every ace in the hole to get them on their side. He needed to present this whole thing positively. I'm taking online courses. I'm taking online courses, Mom, to get a head start on working in Darton County. I'm going to finish my degree. He thought of the subtext in the argument. I'm going to do everything you want me to do. I'm going to meet your expectations. But I will not sacrifice my life, my dreams, on the altar of the ambitions you have for me. Of course, they'd see through it, or so they thought. They would assume.

Why, though, did they assume? Why did they assume that he was doing what he was doing for Sam? He was not so noble as to forget himself. He was staying with Sam because he wanted to, because he was a selfish, sinful, fearful, man who couldn't bear being away from her. Jake was weak. He felt weak. He knew he was weak.

It stole his breath, knowing that Sam wasn't beside him. He was staying with her because he liked spending all the time he could with her, because she made him feel things, things that he wasn't really worthy of, but she thought he was. He needed her like he needed air. Heck, he'd go without air if he meant he could be with her always, deep in her soul, so they they never felt anything other than togetherness. She made him feel safe. Sam made him feel whole. His parents didn't see that. They saw what they wanted to see. They said that he was forgetting his own goals, his own dreams. They saw him too differently from what he really was. They thought he was honorable, that he was noble. This wasn't a fairy tale, and the white horse hadn't saved them. He was not noble. He was not good. He was full of fear, but he was honest enough to know what drove him.

_Just an empty place where your love should be_

_I'm sick and tired of walkin' around like this_

_With my heart outside my skin_

_Scared to death we'll never touch again_

_It doesn't get any lonelier than this_

_It doesn't get any lonelier than this_

_And there's no place I can go_

_Just the dusty corners that the shadows know_

_Maybe this is as good as it's gonna get_

_And I'll always be this way_

_Lonelier Than This, _Steve Earle

Sam hung up the phone resolutely. Jen was tied up with chores. She could not hunt down Jake Ely and find out was going on. No, he'd not been seen passing by. No, he hadn't stopped by to see her. No, Ryan hadn't heard from Mr. Ely that Jake would be in town. Jen sounded angry that she was tied up, busy, even as she told Sam she would like nothing more than to be sleuthing. Sam bit her tongue until it bled, bit it so hard, so that she wouldn't scream at the sister of her soul. She would give anything to be busy. Sam was the opposite of busy.

She was throwing a temper tantrum in her mind. She'd hurled the book they were reading across the room. Sam was envious of him. Jake was home, under the open sky in his mother's warm kitchen with the comforts she didn't have. He didn't, obviously, mean half the things he whispered into her hair.

The whole place felt empty. The room felt cold, and every noise was so loud, every sensation was too much, a common byproduct of stress, or so the therapists had told her. She'd curled up, drawing her aching body into the closest approximation of the fetal position she could manage, even as she couldn't physically bring her knees to her chest anymore.

At the park after therapy, she'd bitten some person's head off. She hadn't meant to. She felt horribly about it. One moment, she'd been sitting in the wheelchair, next to the bench Regina was knitting. She was torturing herself, watching the kids play, seeing their mothers chase after them, wondering if she'd have to give up that, too, all the while praying that the accident hadn't ripped away the one dream she had that she held so dear that she never voiced it aloud. The next moment, some woman had walked by, saying to Sam, "How lovely to see you out of the house, dear! Good for you for trying!" With that, she'd turned to her partner, and began to talk, looking at Sam as they walked by.

The subtext was clear. The woman thought that if she were in Sam's position, that she would never leave the house, being that her situation was awful, that she was so pathetic. That was about the nicest thing Sam had ever heard, if patronizing and infantilizing was nice, that is. She would gladly put up with the stares and questions from kids, they were only curious. But such a remark from an urban woman barely into her middle age? No dice. Without thinking, she'd called out, "Good for you, too!" The woman had looked horrified, and Sam had just looked at her plainly as she'd blanched and walked away even faster. Good. She was so not in the mood, but guilt at her response ate at her all afternoon.

She was going insane. Sam couldn't get over how many people existed quite happily in these tiny spaces. Sam wanted to scream, to run, to cry, to run and run and run until there were no more people. There could be no screaming, and no running that was for sure. She had tried so hard.

Going to the park had taken every ounce of energy she had, and she felt horrible afterward for being so petty, when she knew other people were dealing with bigger issues. Was she to be relegated to the sidelines of society? Was she now unfit to be in the world? Was she supposed to feel grateful to that woman, for allowing her entry into public spaces that had been her right? Was she now nothing more than an object for people to use, to marginalize, to objectify to suit their own needs, to make themselves feel superior in their own little worlds that were no better than hers? Where did that lady get off?

Coming back to Sue's, she'd lied again to Regina, saying that she was tired from this morning's session. Regina knew, Sam was sure, that she was lying. Her first lie had been that that woman's remarks hadn't stung. She tried to call Daddy, but he didn't pick up his phone. She wanted her Daddy. He loved her. He thought she was perfect. Except, he didn't think she was strong, capable. He'd sent her away. He didn't want her as a liability. Edye was right. She was a liability, vulnerable to snide remarks and bad lungs. Tears made her wheeze. The sobs that shook her silent body came from nowhere.

Where did that lady get off? Was her own life so terrible that she had to rip down some person she'd never met? She bit her lip again. She would not cry. No one had that kind of power over her.

Still, the tears flowed. She didn't know why she was crying, but cry she did. She cried, and after a while, she felt better. She felt as though the pain had been pushed away. If she could lessen the pain she couldn't explain, maybe Sam could box it away, push it away. She was not a crybaby. Sticks and stones. Sticks and stones, she thought, may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. Words will never hurt me, Sam promised herself, even the words he didn't say.

_Ain't no sunshine when she's gone_

_ Only darkness every day._

_Ain't no sunshine when she's gone_  
_And this house just ain't no home_  
_Anytime she goes away. _

_Ain't No Sunshine_, Bill Withers

The meeting with Ballard was finally over. Jake stepped out of the man's office, feeling like the man's blue eyes had peered into his soul. He'd obviously read something into the situation. Nodding easily, he passed Jake a packet of papers and told him that a spot was his, though he would not be paid, at least not at first. That worked out okay. Jake had a job, and not being locked into a start date meant he could start when he was able to do so, on the condition that his classes worked out. Ballard had been clear that his schoolwork had to come first. With that caveat in place, Heck had extended his hand. Jake had taken it. His path was set, once his courses were.

Walking towards the lobby, a voice called out, "Ely!" Jake turned at the sound. Great. Just great. It was Erwin. Tony Erwin. The grandson of one of Grandfather's buddies, and a real prick all around. He, with his puppy dog face, had been one of the first responders on the scene of the accident. He had...done his job, Jake's mind screamed, as he tried to block the memories of Erwin's expression, of the haunting sounds. He had been doing his job. Do not hit him. Do not pummel his sympathetic expression into the ground. Do not hit him for bringing over bagels in a basket a few days later. Bagels, like he was eating bagels, bagels, like Sam had died. Bagels. Do not hit a coworker over bagels, his mind pleaded. Do not hit him, and do not pass out.

"Jake." Erwin said, crossing the room. "How's Samantha?"

Fine, he thought. The bagels you brought over healed her right up. She's not in San Francisco alone, and I'm not here, wondering why the heck you're asking stupid questions. "Fine."

"Good to hear, man!" Erwin said soundly. "Guess we'll be seeing you around here, then?" He eyed the packet in Jake's hand. "I got my start on internship, too. We'll be glad to have you, Jake!"

"Right." He said. Erwin's cinnamon bagels made him vomit. He recalled trying to eat it because Mama forced it on him, only to have thrown it up. He'd thrown it up, and sobbed himself to sleep. He wonder what Erwin would say if he knew that about his lame bagels? They made me sick, Erwin, your dumb assurances made me angry, and your bagels made me sick. "I should..." Jake began.

"Right!" Erwin nodded. "See you, Jake. Hey, feel free to stop by, even if you're not starting right yet. It's good to get out of the house."

Yeah, right. It was good to get out of the house. Sure. "Erwin."

"Bye, Jake." The cop barely two years his senior nodded. How could someone be so jovial? "See ya! I can't wait to see Sam!"

Jake reigned his emotions in as he started the truck again. He was, on some level, gearing up for his meeting with Wyatt and he needed to be calm, not rolling with emotion. Wyatt did not respond to emotion. He, angry as Jake was, missed Wyatt and Grace. His first stop was Three Ponies. He avoided the house. He needed to see Witch. She was his girl, after all. He called to her with a whistle, and she came flying across the acreage. Her eyes were accusatory. "Hey, Witch."

She seemed to say hello, accepting his touch, as he petted her and breathed in her horsey scent. "Miss you." He choked out. "Want to go see Ace?" She seemed to consent, and they set out for the barn, so he could go grab her tack. She did not to be led. Even after not seeing her for days on end, she followed him as she often did. She trusted him. Witch trusted him, loved him, even as he had abandoned her into Quinn's care.

Quinn hardly knew her like he did, but she was well cared for, even if her exalted standards were not being met to her exacting specifications. God, how he missed her. She knew, though, that she could not come to San Francisco, he hoped. She understood. Witch, for all the facts of her temper and reputation, was the only person who really got the whole thing, without judgement or pity. She understood love, because she felt it. For him. That fact, emotional as he was, nearly brought him to his knees. The comfort he felt as they interacted was astronomical. Witch's knowing eyes settled his stomach. There was no need for pretense around her. Together, they saddled up and headed across the range towards River Bend.

He and Witch crossed the bridge. Witch was confident, excited, even in her ice princess way, to see her friends. Jake was scared, and he had to keep telling himself to keep his hands soft. Dallas came upon him as he dismounted in the yard. "Jake?"

"Dallas." He held onto Witch as he spoke to the man, eager to be near her, though he'd never admit it, not even under the pain of death. "Where's Wyatt?"

"I'm well, too, Son. Thanks for asking." The old man clucked. Dating Grace had obviously made him soft. Still, a stab of remorse hit Jake. He did care about Dallas. The man had taught him much of what he knew about manhood, about being a cowboy. For years, he'd trailed Dallas like a lost hound, learning the things Dad didn't have the spare moments to teach him. It was to Dallas that he'd confessed his desire to be a cop, his desire to one day train horses. "But I'm thinking Wyatt's over at the BLM corrals."

"What?" Jake burst forth with the exclamation. Wyatt had no business with the government. He was the sort that thought they should keep their Washington rhetoric out of things they didn't know about or understand. The man resented outside influences on his land. Why would he be there.

Dallas looked ready to speak, but shook his aged head, "It's not for me to say, Jake." He paused, a look settling onto his face, "No matter what, you bring our Sammy girl home. No matter what." he pleaded earnestly, "You hear me, son? No matter what...shenanigans are going on, you bring her home."

"Dallas?" Jake said, begging for information. The old man looked haunted, as though he was willing Jake to read his mind, read something into this conversation that he could not say aloud.

"It's not my place." He stated, gruffly, taking ahold of Witch's bridle. "I'll see to Witch."

"Dallas?" He took two steps forward.

"I said I would see to Witch." Dallas said. "Have they taught you to talk back to your elders in that godforsaken city?" He walked off with Witch, mumbling about cities and little girls.

Jake wiped his sweaty palms on his jeans. He looked around, unsure what to do. What did Dallas mean 'shenanigans?' Grace would know. Grace would talk. Although, after that sobering encounter, he might have to turn down her cake. Maybe she'd send some home for both of them. Like as not, she'd load him down with stuff. He'd have to come back to get it though.

He bounded up to the porch. What was going on? The flowers were weedy. The flowers, Grace Forester's pride and joy, were never weedy. He walked in, as was his custom, to the kitchen. There were two dishes in the sink. There were dishes in the sink. God, he prayed, don't let Grace be hurt. She could have fallen ages ago. She could have died. She could be sick. There were dishes in the sink and the counters weren't gleaming. Something was really...

"Grace!" Jake cried out hoarsely when he saw the cake dome. It was empty. "Grace?"

He called again, rushing into the living room, "Grace?" She wasn't downstairs. She wasn't downstairs. His foot was on the bottom stair, ready to rush upstairs, when she appeared before him. Her pressed blouse was rumpled, and her normally gleaming up-do was messy. "Gr-" His voice cracked.

"Jake?" She said, voice hollow.

"Are you hurt?" He begged her, please don't be hurt. Please. Please, God. Anyone else. Me. Not Gram. "Hurt?"

She came down the stairs. Her feet were bare, her denim skirt rumpled as though she had been sleeping. "No." She said, "No."

He followed her into the kitchen, and watched as her face colored for a second. He didn't care about any of the dishes, not when he knew she was okay. "Is Sam...here?"

He shook his head. "I'm sorry."

"It's for the best." She said dully.

"Is it?" He asked softly.

"Oh, land!" She cried, "Is it midday already?"

"Yes." He replied, startled at the change of subject. "It is."

"Oh!" She cried, rushing around. "I have to start dinner. I have to, you see."

"Grace." He tried to soothe her, even as he had no clue what to do. She was pulling out dishes and fixings. He really didn't have time, but... "I'll...do up the dishes for you."

"No, no. You go on home." She shooed him away. "Your mom will want to see you."

"But Gram..." He tried to speak.

"No. This is still my house." She put her hands on her hips. "Go."

"But..." She needed help. She needed to talk. The famous let's sit down and talk it over Grace Forester wasn't talking.

"Go." She said, "Now."

He tipped his hat, formally, even as he wished to hug her. He just wanted her to hug him, and feed him cake, and swear that it would be okay. "May I get Sam's sketchbook?"

She nodded. "It's in the living room. I didn't...have the heart to move it."

He returned with Sam's art kit, her pencils, watercolors, anything she might want in the next few days, and said, "She's okay, Grace. She's still her. She misses you. Loves you. Wants you to be okay." We both do, Jake's mind cried out. She didn't reply.

Sighing, he took up the bag of Sam's things and headed to the barn. He stopped Pepper, who seemed to be moving quickly, working his boots off. "Could you put this up for me? I'll be back later."

Pepper nodded. "Tell her we miss her."

Jake nodded his thanks. Pepper never said stupid things. He only told the truth, even if his language was often too poetic to be normal. Jake didn't see Dallas as he and Witch left to go home again. It was time to face Mom and Dad.

_We're both men here, so why play games?_

_Why don't we call a spade a spade?_

_Man to man_

_Tell me the truth, tell me_

_Were you ever there when she needed you? _

_Man to Man, _Gary Allen

Jake could not believe that he had missed Wyatt. The whole point of coming up here was to see him. Jake inhaled as Witch flew along, her good mood, uncharacteristic as it was, made him feel slightly better. Maybe he could write Wyatt and... No, Grace would tell him Jake had stopped by. So would Dallas and Pepper. They'd work it out. They'd have to do so. Sam needed to be involved in the conversation, anyway. He should have never come here without her. It felt wrong. It was wrong.

Witch clambered into Three Ponies and noted that Wyatt was there. Pulling his hat down low, after he turned out Witch, he crossed the yard and entered the house. After sitting down and greeting his mother, Jake got to the point.

"What's going on?" He asked.

"Jake. I...came today to tell you that Sam is going to finish high school in San Francisco." Wyatt was stern, though he didn't meet Jake's eyes.

"And...how does Sam feel about this?" Jake needed information. This had never, never, come up in their discussions. Sam never considered staying as a possibility. Her father had never mentioned it to her on the phone. Jake inhaled. Sam wasn't here. She needed to be here. He felt dirty for discussing their future without her input, like a back room arms dealer.

"The thing is, she doesn't know. And you aren't going to tell her." Wyatt declared, "This is best."

There was no way in hell that Jake wasn't going to tell her every single thing that went down today. Was Wyatt suffering so much that he didn't recall who he was dealing with? They had no secrets. But, evidently, Wyatt did. His jeans and shirt were pressed, and there wasn't an air of work about them. Suddenly, it made sense why it had looked like Pepper was doing more work. Jake thought it was because of Sam's absence, but... He himself wanted to know where Wyatt was coming from. Jake reminded him, "She wants to come home."

"This isn't about what she wants." Wyatt replied, "I know what's best."

Jake asked one word, softly, "How?" How could this be happening? How? Sam would know what to say, how to put this conversation on track, how to use words to get it where it needed to be, but Jake didn't have those skills. Now, he knew that he would have to wait to talk to mom and dad together. It was only mom here, and he was mindful of her presence.

"How, what?" Wyatt asked. Oh, so Wyatt wanted to play games. He could go there. Jake didn't want to, but the man was sitting there telling him that he was going to split up his family without asking Sam what she thought about it. Split them up, right. Mom was stunned, silent. He sent her a look of apology, knowing that she wouldn't take too kindly to how this was going down.

"How do you know what's best?" Jake met his gaze, all pretense of ease gone, "Seems to me you don't know anything at all."

"Son, I know Sam wants you around, but don't attempt to tell me you know my daughter better than I do." Wyatt returned.

"I'm not attempting anything, Wyatt." Jake corrected. And really, he wasn't. The comparison was laughable. Wyatt knowing Sam better than he did? What? Maybe, on some level, he did. Wyatt was her father. Jake didn't see Sam as a little girl to be raised, but as a woman to be...He shook his head softly.

"Really?" Wyatt asked, "Seems that way. I know what kind of care Sam needs in this situation."

"You know nothing about this situation, Wyatt." Jake said, tone low, anger in his eyes, "Nothing, do you hear me?" There was a limit to what a guy could take. Wyatt needed to get his own house in order before he came poking into Jake's life, and what he did or didn't know.

"And you know more about it than I do?" Wyatt sounded incredulous. With that question, he found the sorrow underneath the anger welling up. Sadness for Sam, who wanted nothing more than to come home and see her Dad, her horses. Sorrow for Wyatt who was so divorced from what was really going on, by choice or circumstance, he didn't know. Wyatt was, in his core, a decent man, with honor. Jake believed that he believed he was doing what was best for Sam. He wanted the man that meant so much to them both to be involved, he did, but to assume that he knew because he made phone calls was ludicrous.

"Yes." Jake explained, "I've been there, beside her. I was there when she stood without pain, when she cried for hours and couldn't say why." He paused, unwilling to open up Sam to her father. Wyatt wanted this to be all about him? Fine. Jake could go there. Jake could meet his I and Me statements line for line, point for point. Changing his mind, he asked, "Do you know what the hardest part of her day is? How about the routines her therapists have her on? What about names of the nurses and the schedule?"

Wyatt looked thunderous, but never replied.

"Let me help you then." Let me help you, his mind cried, let me help you understand. You know the medical statistics, you know the reports, Jake's mind cried, but you don't know Sam. She's improving. She's going to beat this. She's stronger than any piece of paper or phone call could quantify, or qualify. "She struggles with putting on her socks. They gave her a packet of stretches and have her going on a walk every evening. Their names are Regina and Edye."

Wyatt began, "Just because I don't know the details doesn't mean I don't care. I've respected her space."

"That's just bull, Wyatt." Jake spat, "She didn't need space. She needed her family, and you failed her. So when I tell you I know more, I'm only telling the truth." He was only telling the truth, because he'd failed her, too. He'd failed her, too, and Jake knew what that felt like, the crushing despair. If only Wyatt knew that they were all in this together, that they would win or loose together.

"I'm getting angry here Jake. I did the best I could." Jake noted dimly that Wyatt sounded defensive.

So he wanted to go toe to toe on this? Fine. It was what it was. Wyatt had set the terms. He had made this a battle between the two of them. Jake could take him. He admitted the bald truth as he saw it. "And the best you could is dumping her off with your sister-in-law while you can't even bother to drive a few hours when her lungs start to fail." Jake illustrated.

"My choices are none of your concern." Wyatt met his gaze, steel evident in his tone, "Sam understood."

"Hm." Wyatt wanted this to be about him, even when presented with the fact that really, this was about Sam. Fine. Jake sat stoically. "Did she?"

"She said she..." Wyatt began.

Jake cut him off, correcting his interpretation of the facts, "was fine because that's what you want to hear. I was in the room. She wasn't fine, Wyatt."

"Son, I'm not going to sit here and listen to your accusations." Wyatt warned, but it fell on uncaring ears. Wyatt was not his father. His father had raised him to do three things, listen to his horses, take care of his stock first, and live in sacrifice for those he loved. Wyatt was doing none of those things.

Jake pretended to be calm, even as his heart was breaking, anger and ice flowing in his blood, calling to him to give in, give in and say exactly what he thought. "Just saying it as I see things."

"Seeing as you're speaking your mind, today," Wyatt said, "why don't you say what you want to say."

The floor was his. What could he say? Everything he'd rehearsed had flown out the window. Just as his mouth opened to speak, his gaze flitted over his mother. His angry, hurt filled, words stopped on his teeth. He would honor his mother, honor the way she had raised him. "You don't get what you're asking us to do." Jake began, as Wyatt's eyebrows rose. Jake calmed, and tried his best to elaborate, "Look, you lost Aunt Lou. And I have no idea what that's like. But what would you do if you knew she was out there, hurting someplace?"

_You think you're gonna take her away_

_Keep thinkin' that her mind is gonna change_

_But I know everything is okay_

_She's gonna listen to her heart_

_It's gonna tell her what to do_

_She might need a lot of lovin'_

_But she don't need you_

_Listen to her Heart, _Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers

Max saw the look that crossed Wyatt's face, even as Jake did not. Her son was lost in his thoughts, probably trying not to imagine how close he'd come to being in the exact same boat Wyatt had found himself in, all those years ago. Wyatt, upon hearing Jake's honest words, looked like the world had been split in half, and he was left straddling the two halves as the polar ice cap melted. Max took the reins, unsure as to where this would end up, and spoke, "Jacob, go on to the barn. We need to talk a bit."

"Sure, Mama," The young man rose, and left the room as silence reigned until she heard the door close.

Wyatt gripped his coffee mug, face ashen, and Max said, "Look, he had no right to say that, Wyatt."

The rancher looked up and sighed deeply. "No, the kid's right. You know if Lou were here... You know there would be no question of what Lou would have wanted for her daughter. But she isn't here. She isn't. And I can't..."

"Oh, Wyatt." Max thought that Wyatt had missed the significance of what Jake had been trying to convey, but she didn't think now would be a good time to tell him what she suspected, what she knew. They fell quiet.

"Did we make a mistake, all those years ago?" Wyatt's voice was soft, hesitant.

"Huh?" She was lost in her own thoughts. Max was lost in a swirl of happier times, of all the times Sam refused to go home after a day of playing, or the moments she chased Jake around, even though he complained, or humored her with a smile.

Wyatt must have been on the same track, when he finally spoke, he said, "Encouraging their bond. Sometimes I wonder if we shouldn't have broken it, pulled them apart a bit, just for them to grow up as their own people, not as Sam and Jake."

"They are their own people. Really." Max insisted, "But I don't think..." What could they have done? What could they do now? Her son, her baby, looked so much healthier. He didn't look like he was lifeless, dying, anymore. He had someone to fight for. He always had. She was just broken that he had to go up against Wyatt.

"You're right. What could we have done, in all honesty? They..." He couldn't bear to finish the thought, state what was so clearly obvious.

"Yeah." Max looked to her tea, "They really do love each other. And what scares me is that it's not infatuation. It's not lust. I don't even think they see their genders, not really. They simply see each other as their partner." Max thought, though, that that was slowly changing. Sam was only getting older. Jake would mature, in that way, at some point, even as boys were behind girls in manny areas. Max imagined that it would hit them both over the head. She hoped they wouldn't be too scared or dismayed to embrace the fact that love changed. "I've never done this, Wyatt. With all the others, not once."

"Done what?" Wyatt sounded perplexed.

"Not had to worry about my son and girls." She replied. "Never have I known that his love for someone else transcended hormones." She added silently, Never would I believe that his love for her would transcend his love for a man he had idolized, whom he'd thought had hung the very stars. Jake had learned a lot today, as had his mother, Max thought with a heavy heart.

Wyatt admitted, "You're scaring me, Max."

"Welcome to motherhood, Wyatt." Max smiled, "Lou and I talked about this all the time."

"And what did she say?" He seemed desperate to cling to some remnant of newness surrounding his wife, as though learning all the secrets she'd had would bring her back to him somehow.

Max grinned, thinking of the sunny young woman who danced around her kitchen. "She used to sing that song. You remember? _Que Sara Sara_?"

"Whatever will be, will be." His eyes grew wistful.

Max shoved the heartache away and turned outward, her tone businesslike. "So our job is to figure out what to do for the next few weeks."

"Let the boy go." Wyatt capitulated from their earlier stance. He'd been so hardline, that Max almost blurted out, questioning his change of heart. Wyatt Forester was a good man. They'd all agreed that they'd talk until Jake agreed to stay up home, but now, Wyatt had been the one to back down, to change his mind, "I...I just might get my family back."

_That's when the flashback started to begin_

_They started slow_

_But they picked up fast_  
_So I got off my ass_  
_And I ran away to Californ-I-A_

_Oh My God_

_I should've never let you leave my side_

_Should've never left you alone_

_It probably seems like I'm never coming home_

_California, _Never Shout Never

Sam should be able to sleep after a long day. Therapy had gone well, this morning. She'd started to feel like her limbs were connected to her body during the session. She was making progress. Everyone said so, but Sam didn't feel that way, at least not where it counted. She couldn't shift her weight well, yet, so she pushed the buttons to make the bed sit up and shoved a pillow under her side. It was a poor approximation of the support she needed, but she was loathe to wake up Sue. Only God in His infinite Wisdom knew how the woman kept from killing her from lack of sleep Sam had inflicted on her.

Finally, Sam made up her mind, decided upon something she'd been mulling over all day. The hospital bed sucked. She only kept it because everyone seemed to think she should. She sat up and got her bearings, moving to stand. That done, she walked towards the door, only to hear movement coming from the living room. She almost wrote it off as Cougar or Blaze being silly, but then, she thought, they weren't here. Sue didn't have any pets, unless you counted her collection of dust bunnies.

Well, robbers were a dime a dozen, so she crept along toward the noise as silently as her dragging gait would allow. She saw nothing, and turned back down the hallway, only to hear something in the kitchen. Her racing heart slowed. There was no robber, after Sue's random throw pillows.

Maybe Sue was getting a snack. She could always try to eat something. She moved toward the kitchen quickly only to bump into a solid mass of...Jake Ely.

"What are you doing here?" She whispered, trying not to wake Sue and to disguise the fact that her voice seemed to have failed her, when Jake's arms had steadied her, kept her from falling.

He was holding a hastily made sandwich, she saw, when he stepped back."Told you I'd come back." He took a big bite, teasing her. She could hear his teasing in his tone, see it in the lightness of his body language, "Were you waiting up for me?"

"No!" She spat, an uncontrolled blush rising in her face, neck, and ears. "I heard noise."

"Uh huh." He grinned, biting into the sandwich, making a show of the mustard he loved, "Coming to bed?"

She nodded, sticking to her earlier realization, wishing the blush hadn't intensified. "Yours though."

"Finally realize that bed sucks?" Jake asked, as he swallowed the last bite of the mammoth sandwich.

She bristled, "Didn't hear you complaining."

"I wasn't." He whispered, touching her arm. She wished his touch didn't calm her, didn't feel so deplorably nice. The darn injury was making her all flighty, again.

"Go brush your teeth." Sam ordered, if only to give herself some space to gain equilibrium. Why was he here? What did that note he'd left mean, then? What had happened up home? "I hate the smell of ham."

"Telling me what to do?" Jake stepped back in the darkness, and Sam felt the coolness that came with the loss of his touch again.

"Yes." She replied, tearing her eyes from his mustang gaze. Turning into the kitchen, she thought to grab some water. When the light from the fridge glared in the darkness, she saw six quarts of his mother's soup, a loaf of homemade bread, and half a dozen other things she'd canned herself on the table. It was evident that Max would have wanted to stay up home for the night. Sam did the math. Jake had left before seven in the morning just to make it back by midnight. Sam was too happy, too selfish, to consider what that meant for Jake in the moment. Tomorrow was another day. They would talk tomorrow.

_I think I could need this in my life._

_I think I'm scared. _

_I think too much._

_I know it's wrong, it's a problem. _

_I think you're so mean. _

_I think we should try..._

_I think I could need, this in my life._

_And I think I'm scared that I know too much. _

_I can't relate and that's a problem. _

_I think I'm scared. _

_Do I talk too much?_

_I know it's wrong, it's a problem... _

_If You're Gone, _Matchbox 20

**Chapter title by Steve Earle and The Dukes. I interpret guy as being gender neutral in this context, by the by. **

**Sorry about NSN's language, but it does fit the narrative. **

**I'd encourage you to listen to the songs, if that's your thing. **

**Reviews & PMs are, as always, welcome. **


	8. Still Standing

_I go about my business, _

_I'm doing fine. _

_Besides, what would I say if I had you on the line?_

_Same old story, not much to say,_

_Hearts are broken every day. _

_You Were Meant for Me_, Jewel

The next morning dawned with an aching slowness, every facet of the dawn being drawn out like a bow, heavy and tight with an arrow poised, ready to fly. Sam watched from the chair as the sun peaked over the horizon, turning the sky from a inky black, to a blue black, to a violet, and finally to a blue that rivaled greeting cards. She sat for hours in the gray chair that dominated the wall, thinking over all that Jake had told her, and had come to the conclusion that she needed to go home. Now. She needed to work this out with Dad. She knew Jake was angry at Dad, but Sam was more scared than angry. He seemed to have reasons, for this, for his strange behavior, reasons he was holding back from her. Everyone reacted differently to fear, and Sam couldn't understand his reaction.

Sam counted the minutes until she could call home, in time with Jake's even breaths, and talk to Gram. Sam had a horrible, sinking feeling that Gram was depressed. It had happened before, she knew, when Momma died, and when PopPop had died. It was just Gram's way, sometimes, to get blue, when others would become angry. She had given Sam her habit of withdrawing. Sam understood, then, better than anyone, she thought. Understanding where Gram was at mentally didn't make it easy to know that she was here, and Gram was there and there was nothing Sam could do to help.

"Sam?" Jake blurted. He looked around, panic clear on his face, as he took in the unfamiliar guest room.

Sam inhaled. "I'm here."

Jake visibly relaxed, and Sam didn't know what that meant. She refused to analyze it. She met his gaze, and something shifted. It took the air from her lungs. His gaze was expectant, and heady. Sam didn't know what to make of it. The house phone rang, and Jake picked it up, jolting after the second ring, fumbling with the phone in the cradle by the bed.

Sam ignored the chatter, staring out the window. Phone calls before nine in the morning were never good. What if something was wrong with Gram? With fear ripping her apart, Sam found the spot inside her head, the place no one could find her, where she was beyond it all, and let her consciousness fly.

"Sam?" A hand on her arm an indeterminable time. She jumped, and pressed her face into Jake's side. "Sorry, sorry..." He whispered, "Why'd you leave me?"

"I..." She inhaled. Mint and something indescribably comforting hit her nose. Sam resisted the urge to cling to him, to never let go, to wrap herself up in his warmth. Jake didn't pull away from her embrace, as she muttered fearfully, "Was that Gram?"

"No, Brat." Jake soothed, "The Agency. Regina's grandson is sick. She'll be a bit late."

The on call was Edye, and Sam refused to call, saying she'd rather have a PJ morning. Jake spoke, "You've got rehab, Sam." He was clearly frightened by her withdrawal from the world in the daylight hours. It was a coping mechanism, he knew. He wasn't stupid. Jake knew that Sam was dealing with a heck of a lot more than she could or would verbalize. She was incredibly strong, but even the strongest of people needed their soft spots to fall. If she wanted to hide in a comer of her mind for a few hours a day, he'd gladly hold her until she felt better. Jake wanted to be Sam's soft place to fall. It scared him, though, that it was coming to the fore over hypothetical worries in the daylight hours. Jake pressed Sam closer, wishing he could be in her mind, just to tell her, just so she would know, in her heart and her mind, that nothing, nothing in this world, was insurmountable, as long as they faced it together.

Sam's heart was lighter even as she felt foolish, now that she knew it hadn't been Gram, or more actually, someone with bad news about Gram. She was in a better mood after last night, when she'd been down about the challenges she'd faced yesterday, and processing what Jake had told her, whispered in the darkness, talking until they were hoarse and exhausted. Sam knew that her better mood wasn't saying much, given her introspection. Sam couldn't think about Dad now, couldn't find the words to make the call she'd planned on making.

Jake snorted a small laugh. "I'll take you."

"Fine, ruin my plans." She said, rising to go dress, missing his touch. Back in the room with the hospital bed, she tried to grab things she could put on easily. She settled, after a moment, on a tank top and zippered hoodie, with yoga pants. She glanced at the tag, hating the letter she saw. Sue had shopped for her a bit, but she wished she could wear her own clothes. Jeans and boots didn't fit in a rehab gym, though.

Sam felt so different, as though she was no longer who she was because of what she wore. She felt like an impostor, a poseur. Sam Forester never wore bright pink and black lycra. Sam Forester liked flannel and waffle thermals and cotton in greens and dark blues. Sam looked at the hoodie, and threw it on the bed with some force, damning her impulses as she did it. She would shut up, suck it up, and wear the hoodie, even if it killed her.

Sue was like Gram. Gram thought talking could solve everything. Sue applied the same reasoning to shopping for clothes. Consequently, Sam had an entire wardrobe of clothing from obscenely ridiculous shops, in sizes she didn't even know existed. She missed being her own size. It was, for her, a comfortable size, even if she did have problem spots. Now, she was different and felt so odd in her body and her clothes. They were items she would have never selected.

Even the sports bras had lace trims. Getting the bright green garment on was an exercise in absurdity. She nearly fell off the bed putting on her underpants, and felt disgusting, worn out, and sweaty from simply getting dressed and she'd just showered yesterday evening. Jake hadn't been around, so she had lingered over a really hot shower, flooding the bathroom with steam and water. Sue had insisted on a girl's night, and they'd watched _Pretty Woman _until Sam's head throbbed angrily.

She wanted to crawl in bed and not come out as she nearly threw her sneaker, stopping just as she realized that she'd have to pick it up. Putting her head down like that made her feel like she was going to fall. Throwing things never really made her feel better, or not for long, anyway. Regina's absence, while unavoidable, drove home a point Sam couldn't bear. She was an object in her own life, not the subject. She had no real control over where she went, how she got there, anything. Sam felt like running, running, running, when she realized that she was dependent on everyone she knew, just to live, and survive, somehow. She had known that, but it infuriated her that the things that had been background noise in life, getting ready and going places, had to become her focus or nothing would get done. It was fine, though, because only she knew that she'd gotten her arms stuck in a shirt made of a fabric that, weeks ago, she would have rejected for the fact that it would have clung to fat.

Sam needed help with her left sock, and tying her shoes. It was unavoidable as her fingers shook with fatigue, feeling like rubber as she tried to shove the bunny under the tree while not falling off the bed as she leaned over. She'd tried to apologize to Jake, but he wouldn't hear it, as his hands lingered over the task as though he didn't mind. Jake's hands lingered on her ankles, as though he couldn't get over how slim and boney they were. It was yet another feature about her that had changed.

Nothing was right anymore, not really. She felt so hampered by everything that used to be so easy. Now, she had to think about the little things, like standing up and sitting down, and rolling over, and eating, and talking. These things had been background, weeks ago, and now they took up the whole of her concentration. She'd thought she was dealing, but it was really hard for her to admit that she was no longer autonomous. How could she be a strong, independent, person, without actually being independent and strong?

Sam was lost in her thoughts as they set off, as Sam hauled herself into the Scout with a huff, feeling the strain in her thighs and upper arms as she did so. She felt like she was falling, falling, falling, getting into the truck, but she ignored that part of her brain. It regularly lied. It was not to be trusted. She tried to smile, when she noted that Jake saw, too clearly, the emotions swirling on her face. "I need a mounting block..."

Jake simply placed his hand on her backside and gently boosted her into the Scout. Sam exhaled sharply. His touch always lingered, even on impersonal spaces. Jake went around to his side, and started his beloved truck, amazed at how busy San Francisco was at the early hour. These people never seemed to get anywhere they were going. It was always go, go, go, but there was never an ounce of staying. They dashed to the takeout place, to the corner grocery, to the park, but they never stayed anyplace. It boggled Jake's mind.

"Crazy, right?" Sam said, gesturing to one man, who was bustling down the street in a trench coat, balancing not one, but two cell phones, and a Starbucks carrier. The red light went on forever, and the man seemed lost in his own world, moving along in shoes that probably cost more than Sam's saddle. Her heart clenched, a black pall coming over her. She was more like the man on the street, now, than the girl she used to be. It was time to accept that.

"Probably on the phone managing people's lives." Jake said. "Or ordering more muffins."

"Look, look!" Sam said, as the traffic began to move, "He's got a third cell phone."

"He's a spy, then." Jake said, as the man fished a third phone out of his coat with a look of distaste.

"Come off it." Sam shook her head as they left the man behind, "He was a yuppie."

"With three cell phones?" Jake brow rose.

"Wife, Mistress, and Work." Sam said, counting them off on her fingers, he tone revealing what she thought about men with mistresses.

Jake just looked at her, as he turned left.

"What?" Sam said, easily. "Dallas always says..." Sam broke off sharply, "He always said that cities are dens of iniquity."

"He says that about every place that has a population density higher than seven." Jake said.

"Doesn't mean he was wrong." Sam shot back. "And the dude's wife probably knows, and is going to take him to the cleaners. Maybe it was their lawyer calling, huh?"

"Hmm." Jake agreed, as they parked.

The hospital was bustling when they went into the outpatient entrance. Sam insisted on pushing herself. Jake stepped back. He missed the ability to hold her hand. He'd never had the courage to do it before the accident, but sometimes, if Quinn had been needling him a bit, or if he felt particularly needy, he would walk close enough to her, so that when their limbs moved, his hand would occasionally brush against the back of hers.

It was harder than he realized, with the wheelchair, to stand close enough to her. He wasn't her helper, like so many people they saw probably assumed when they went on walks. He saw the glances. Jake never knew, before the accident, how much differently people moved based on relationships. He wanted people to know that they were...friends? Friends, right. He wanted people to know that they were friends, that he was with her, that she was with him, because because because...

"Jake?" Sam was looking up at him, an amused expression her face. "We're here."

He nodded, trying to play it cool. Then, he really looked around him. Jake was surprised to see the pediatric gym nearly deserted at the early hour. Sam noticed his expression as he sat down in a chair, "They group us by age. My appointments are usually this early."

"Oh, the mute speaks." A lightly accented voice said from a small ways away, near a mat table.

Jake tensed. Sam shook her head minutely. The tilt of her head told him this snippy girl was no threat. He relaxed. She understood his reply. There was nothing that needed to be said.

"Shush, Matrona." Sam grinned, moving forward to smile at the girl. Sam really was glad to see her. She owed Matrona a lot, but the Russian girl upbraided her at the slightest expression of her thanks.

"How are you, Sam?" the girl asked, saying, "My new roommate sucks."

"Why?" Sam inquired, from her chair.

"Nevermind." Matrona waved it off, "Who's that?" She asked, gesturing to Jake, who sat in the waiting area on the side. Sam knew that Matrona had ages to go, yet, in her recovery, before she could be released, and Sam was glad to provide her with information. Each girl lived vicariously through the ones that had gotten out, proven to the ones who hadn't that it was possible.

On the ward floor, such girls were spoken of with uncaring bravado and scorn until the lights went out. After that, there were whispered conversations about what you'd do when you were released. Matrona wanted a tattoo. Sam had wanted to go home, to feel like herself again. There was nothing else she wanted, had dreamed of, not fancy parties, or dancing, or going for a run. Only now did she realize that her dream had been the wildest, the craziest and most far fetched of them all.

"My friend, Jake." Sam replied.

"Oh, your boyfriend." Matrona nodded, recalling all the phone calls and the insinuations that came with them. Matrona had, like many of the girls on the gender segregated hallway, had teased Sam about Jake. Sam was used to it. It's not like every person they knew hadn't thought that at one time or another. Matrona would see, soon, that Sam and Jake were simply friends. Sam wished, though, that there was something simple about their relationship. Their friendship was mixed up and crazy, but it worked for them, even if people could not see that friends was where it stopped.

"He's not..." Sam was cut off from her tirade by her former roommate.

"He's not my boyfriend, Matrona, I just love him to bits and want to have his babies." Matrona mocked, trying to adopt Sam's tone and accent.

"I never said that." Sam spat, blushing horribly. She wished Matrona would just shut up. Jake had a tracker's hearing. No doubt he could hear everything that was being said, no matter that Matrona wasn't being loud.

"No denial either." Matrona grinned, looking Jake over, "I wouldn't tell him no, either."

Sam felt a moment of indignant rage so strong that she was surprised when her mouth fell open, but not one angry word fell out. Sam's line of vision fell on Jake, and there was a slight blush near his collar. Darn. Darn. Darn. He'd heard everything. If she lied and denied...Wait! She was lying or denying anything! There was nothing, nothing, nothing...

Sam was simply correcting her friend. She just didn't know how to do it. If Sam corrected Matrona too strongly, how would that look to Jake, or to Matrona? Sam glared, but let it go as their attention was pulled away. "Girls, let's get going." Kayla called, from a mat.

Matrona turned away, muttering, "No wonder you were in such a hurry to get home."

Sam blushed, kicking herself for her overreactive capillaries.

The session began, and Sam wished it was over three minutes after it started. This session was nothing like the one Jake had observed. Kyla was putting her through the paces, now, not making sure she wasn't dealing with effects from fluid in the lungs. The nebulizer took care of that, and now there was no excuse for not hitting the ground running. Whoever said physical therapy was easy, lied. Sam had thought, going in, that it would be easy, restful, soft. That was completely wrong. It felt like bootcamp, a bootcamp that played to her weaknesses, finding every soft spot, weak spot, or flaw.

She did the same things session after session, over and over, in a thousand new ways. It was all about correcting what she done wrong, only to do it right. Sam couldn't stop when she finally gotten it correct, though. Oh, no, she couldn't stop working on something until it was learned it so innately that she couldn't do it incorrectly, no matter how much pain she was in or stress you were under. Sam knew she could be dying, bleeding your guts out, and they would still say "Stand up. No, the angle is wrong. Get down. Again. Stand up correctly or not at all." And so Sam had spent her free time in the gym, practicing until she got it right, until no one, and nothing, could take away her ability to stand up away from her. She had earned it, sweat for it, bled for it, it was hers, and she would never lose it again.

_Cause sometimes you just feel tired,_

_Feel weak_

_And when you feel weak, you feel like you wanna just give up._

_But you gotta search within you, you gotta find that inner strength_

_And just pull that shit out of you and get that motivation to not give up_

_And not be a quitter, no matter how bad you wanna just fall flat on your face and collapse._

_Till I Collapse_, Eminem

Sam remembered her first real challenge here, the day everything hit the fan, and it got real. The first lesson they taught was how to get up when you fell. It was a lifeskill, they said, and one she had since mastered out of sheer will. It was poetic, Sam thought. She had hit rock bottom, she knew, and they were teaching her, literally, to claw her way out of a hell many people could not imagine. Hell was not fire and brimstone, Sam had realized. Hell was was wanting a glass of water so badly, and not being able to get it for yourself because the world wasn't set up for people like you. Hell was knowing that the only way to get it was to leave every ounce of pride behind and ask Edye to get it for her and then being grateful if the water was warm.

You had to be able to stand, the therapist she'd forgotten told her. That day, a miserable Thursday, Sam didn't give a flying fadoodle if she could stand. She wanted to be able to sleep a night through without waking screaming for Jake, eat a meal, and feel sooner when her toes were cold. But no, they started her off on the one thing she couldn't do. Hadn't done. She hadn't been able to stand up, not when the accident happened, and she hadn't tried since, well, not in public, anyway.

First, the therapist had shown her how to get out of her wheelchair. She made it look so simple. The words echoed in Sam's brain as she did it. "Push up to stand." The woman demonstrated, showing her, as she directed, "Turn around to face the chair. Kick your feet back. Lower yourself down on your knees. If it hurts too much, kick your feet back farther so that you don't come down so straight on your knees. Lean a bit on the chair, but not too much, or that's cheating, dear."

Sam's own interpretation of the instructions took over. The whole thing made her feel fearful, and dizzy. She later learned that just when her arms felt like they're giving out, she'd feel the mat under her knees. Sam knew it felt like bricks. She'd laid her head down on the gel seat of the chair and shuddered, sucking in a lungful of rapidly depleting oxygen.

The therapist she'd been working with had said, "Good." like she was a jittery horse. Sam's stomach had clenched. Her head was spinning. Her blood was racing. The cavernous room felt too small, too empty. "Samantha, go on and pull one knee up. Plant your foot."

"I can't!" Sam said, knowing that this was why they'd used a bolster to stretch like that, half-kneeling, for days now. She was going to vomit. She wanted to die. She could not get up on her own. It hurt. Hurt. Hurt. Her body was weighing her down.

The therapist clucked, "Can't never did anything till he tried, honey." Still, the woman helped her to plant her left foot. "Good, feel that?" All Sam could feel was the rush of panic that so often overtook her now. But she could not say that out loud. She would not. She would rather die than admit that she was a failure out loud, to some stanger. The woman gently prodded her with her voice, "Now push."

Sam tried putting her weight over that leg in order to push up and drag her other leg into a standing position enough to push the rest of the way up with the leg that she'd been pulling up. Sam thought she might have it until she landed hard, back on her knee, in a half kneel, a cry bitten off before she let it out. She did it again, and got not higher. Again. Her neck started to sweat. Again. Her arms began to wobble, feel numb. She tuned out the therapist. She wondered what would happen if she told the woman to shut up? Matrona had done it once, and gotten told.

Again. Up. And down. Up. Down. Again. There was no way she would figure this out. She was a loser. A freak. Useless. Dependent. Broken. Defective.

Sam's heart was breaking. It was in this moment that she realized that something was wrong. She was more than winded and her vision was blurry. Panic and bile rose inside of her. "I'm having...a heart attack."

"No, dear." The woman soothed, "You just rest on your knees, for a second."

"I can't...breathe." Sam cried, "I...I...I.."

Within a moment, she was sitting on the floor, against a bolster, the therapist actually having helped her to move. "Sam. Listen." Suddenly, the woman was all business as she stared her straight in the eyes, "You are going to be just fine. You are having a panic attack."

"No." Sam cried. "I..." Why couldn't this woman understand that something really bad was going to happen? That Sam was going to die, and she was sitting there, telling her to breathe? Sam felt like there was water in her chest, and she frantically started to grab at her shirt, desperate to do something, anything, to make this last moment easier.

"It's a panic attack." The woman soothed, taking her hands gently, "It'll pass. Breathe with me, okay?"

Sam wrenched her hands away with a sob. There wasn't enough air. Her hands were still numb. Something bad was going to happen. Something really, really, bad was going to happen, and she couldn't get up, couldn't get away. Sam wanted nothing more to run. She could not fight it off, either. She was...vulnerable, a sitting duck. She was unsafe. She made a strangled sound that should have been a word. It should have been a name.

"No, this isn't a joke, honey." The woman said, "You'll be okay. Stay with me."

Sam shook her head frantically. That wasn't what she said, but she didn't know how to correct the woman. That wasn't what she needed. She didn't need to stay with this lady. This wasn't safe. It was so cold, in this gym. There was something terribly, terribly, wrong. Sam felt like screaming at the top of her lungs, screaming, screaming, screaming until she was hoarse, but as it was she couldn't get enough air to make it feel like she wasn't under water. She was under water. Sam at once felt weightless and as though she was filled with lead. "Ja..."

"That's right..." The woman said, "Just breathe."

She was going to die, here, in this gym, on this stupid mat. She was going to die, staring at some woman who made her feel even more unsafe? Her eyes were blue. Blue was the wrong color. Sam didn't know why, but she knew that her eyes were wrong. Sam slammed her eyes shut with a whimper. Just survive. Something bad is going to happen and crying about it isn't going to solve it. Survive. Survive. Survive.

"'ake..." Sam began, when she could get enough air again.

The woman, after a second, said, "You don't have to thank me, honey. I'm sorry. I know this is tough on you."

Sam frowned, when a cup of water was pressed into her sweaty grasp, the styrofoam itching her palm, as the water sloshed out of the cup, on to her lap.

The session had been finished, from that moment. The woman, Sam had forced herself to forget her face, forget her name, even in her memories, had sent her off to her room, shaking like a leaf. Matrona had taken one look at her and said, "Did it feel like you were drowning or floating away?"

"Water." Sam said, hoarsely, as a bout of shivers overtook her, like the aftershocks of an earthquake. "And tremors."

"Just sleep." Matrona had said. "I'll cover for you with the girls."

"Thanks." Sam muttered, as Matrona went back to her iPod, the tinny sound making Sam's head throb. She could not even cry. Sam did not sleep. She was sticky with sweat and salt from tears she hadn't realized she'd cried in the gym. She stared at the wall and felt like a fool.

Later that day, the phycologist had stopped by, outside of group therapy, just to "have a chat." She had shown up rather interestingly, Sam realized now, just after she'd had a shower and they'd forced her to eat some soup.

Sam recalled her response, "I don't...have anything to s-say."

"Samantha, what happened today is very normal." Ella began, "You need to know that you're not alone."

Sam looked out the window. "I lost my breath, is all."

"I'm going to leave this book here, for you, and we'll talk tomorrow." Ella placed a book on the table. Sam did not look it, nor was she grateful that Ella had placed it on the table Sam could reach by herself. In fact, that fact made her angrier than she could express.

Sam blurted, "Tomorrow?" Group therapy was not tomorrow.

"Fridays at three, Sam, for the next few weeks. Tuesdays, too." Ella said. "We'll talk. It'll help."

Sam ignored her as she walked away, and took so long to transfer into her chair that she was five minutes late to the appointment the next day. She hadn't said, but Ella would have had to turn in her Ph.D, if she could figure out that Sam had done it on purpose.

_Oh, the lonely sound of my voice calling_

_Is driving me insane._

_And just like rain the tears keep falling,_

_Nobody answers when I call your name. _

_When I Call Your Name_, Vince Gill

"Ohh, Sam's in outer space again." Matrona said. When Sam came back to the present, Matrona ordered, "Throw the ball, yeah, so we can get out of here before you're too old to act on what you're thinking about!"

Sam scowled, "Anyone ever told you you're really bad, Matrona?"

"My mother. My father. My priest. Everyone." She said calmly, "But it's so fun, Sam. What's life if you don't live?" They got back to work and Sam knew that therapy with Matrona wasn't much easier, although the girl made her laugh quite a bit.

The session was over and Sam felt panic as she looked at the clock. She was never late. Sam threw herself into her chair, and booked it for the door. Matrona called, "Sure, you run off now! Where do you go all the time, anyway?"

Jake stood as she wheeled over to him, and they walked outside the ward. Sam paused. "Come with me." She began to push herself towards the elevator bank in the rehab tower.

"Don't you have OT?" He asked confusedly, following along like a puppy with too big feet.

"Not for 65 minutes." She entered the elevator, narrowly missing getting stuck in the doorway. and pressed the 2R on the button list. Sam was counting every minute between the sessions, determined to be as precise as possible.

Sam felt a sense of ease that came with the knowing that she was finally, for once, in control of what would happen next. Regina, or worse yet, Edye, wasn't here to butt in, to take over. She'd tried to ditch them, once. Regina had played along, sitting right outside the door. Edye, though, had come along and complained the entire time about wasting time. Always, with them, she felt powerless and observed, watched and judged. That wasn't so with Jake, and she found his presence beside her empowering.

Jake rocked back on his boots in the elevator. They were alone in the car. "Where are we going?" He asked.

"Just watch. And if a nurse stops you..." she tilted her head to look up at him, "do not say you're with me."

"Huh?" He followed her out of the elevator, itching to push the wheelchair for her. "What?"

_Don't give up _

_You've got a reason to live _

_Can't forget _

_We only get what we give _

_Don't let go _

_I feel the music in you _

_Fly high _

_What's real can't die _

_We only get what we give _

_You're gonna get what you give _

_Just don't be afraid to live _

_You Get What You Give_, The New Radicals

Jake watched as Sam propelled herself down the long hallway, nodding at a nurse or two, until she came to a sitting room, furnished like a retirement home. She moved through that room, towards the back, where there was a large, open area after a doorway. She kicked out her foot, forcing the door open, shoving a wheel in the doorway, before it could close on her. He stuck his arm out above her, and held the door from behind as she moved through it. It was, Jake realized, an art studio, or what could pass for one.

Sam spoke, as she they walked through the space, "Welcome to geriatric rehab, extended stay unit."

"Huh?" He asked, again. God, she was cryptic.

Sam pulled out a bench, trying to open a space on the end for her chair. He leaned down to lift the footplates for her, and gave her a hand as she stood and shifted over to the bench. He marveled yet again at how many steps there was to the process of moving, how many smaller movements made up the larger ones, how much coordination and concentration she displayed, to make up for her current weakness. He had once thought that standing was one movement, but now he saw it for the complex movement that it was, the blend of isolation and combination of muscle movements and shifts that made up the simplest of actions. The PT could just kiss his behind. If she let him, he was going to help her.

She tried to stand, sitting forward on the bench. "I hate to ask..."

If she said that or I'm sorry, one more time, he was going to do something drastic. He didn't know what he would do, but do something he would. Jake saw her try to pull the bench forward, and slid it forward with the bump of his knee. She sat, and tensed, looking at the clock. "Go sit over there." Said his autocratic best friend, and gestured towards a large seat not far from the bench, next to a big window.

He paused, hoping he could have sat with her. "Go!"

Sam began to pull supplies from the drawers in the huge table, tossing watercolors and paper out along with paintbrushes. She did not pick up a brush for herself. She moved to stand up, and Jake stood, simultaneously. "What do you need?" He asked.

"See the blue dishes?" Sam asked, sitting down again and letting go of the table as she did so, "And the green ones?" She gestured to small plastic dishes set in groups of two all around the table.

"Yeah?" He asked, understanding where she was going. He walked over to the sink as she replied.

"I'm sorry to ask, but can you fill them?" She asked, gaze in her lap.

"Sam." Jake spoke through his teeth. "I can't deal with the 'sorries' every five damn seconds."

"I am sorry." She shot back, as he placed the bowls in the sink and rotated to face her.

Jake met her snapping, sullen gaze. "Sam."

"Why don't you want to hear the truth?" Sam cried, "Would you rather I lied to you?"

"I would rather..." He began, "I would rather...I..." He shrugged, filling the bowls. His mind was screaming. I'd rather, he thought, you would not need this, that this never happened. I want you to need me, to want me, not to feel as though you're some kind of burden. I want you to feel as though you have a right to be the person you are.

"Me too." She said, understanding that they both wished this hadn't happened, "I'll try. I promise."

He needed to correct her, and did so as soon as the water was off, "You don't have to be sorry, Sam, for asking for things that are your right. You don't have to be sorry for making your needs known. You aren't..." He looked at her, heavily, "You aren't the things that you're telling yourself you are."

"Jake." Sam said, almost reproachfully. He sat down next to her bowls squarely back in place.

"I know there's all kinds of garbage, all kinds of things you're dealing with Sam, but do not let them change you." Jake whispered, "That's the promise I want from you."

"I can't give you that, Jake." She said, "They already have."

"They've changed me, too." Jake whispered, catching her hand, feeling some brush burn on the palms of her hand. She hadn't said a word about it. He swore he'd treat it later, even if she shut him out after.

"I'm so..." She broke off, with the look that he knew came over his face. "I'll try, okay?"

"Okay." He stood, again, and began to place the other art supplies at the various spaces.

"And Jake?" Sam said, with a smile, though her tone was deadly serious, "Don't ever tell me what I can and can't say again."

"I'm sorry." He grinned.

"You should be." She said, autocratically.

Jake sat, and watched, as he was lost in watching her move the art supplies, in seeing her be her, even though she wasn't actually drawing or painting, seeing Sam in this setting, he saw a vibrant woman and knew that she was wholly her. She would be okay. Sam was most fully herself when she gave herself over to whim of her artist muse, open and free, making his heart swell, and his soul soar.

He missed, therefore, lost as he was in her presence, the slow arrival of several old people. There were six or seven, as well as several nurses, all told. Sam finished moving things around, and looked up at one man, who'd come close to her, sitting catty-corner to Sam. "Hello, Mr. Hershburger." Sam said, fingers above the paper as though she wished to caress it.

"Hello, dear." He smiled, as he took up a brush, "Are you going to marry me today?"

"I'm only here to direct art lessons for you." Sam smiled, "My Dad wouldn't much like me marrying, much less a charmer like you."

"My Grandson Joey is single. We've got to secure you a gentleman caller." He looked to her, continuing softly. "So much like my Franny. Too nice to be single, like you are." Jake wrestled with the urge to stand. He fought hard with a part of himself that demanded he make his presence known, that he make his presence understood, even though he knew he didn't understand why that was.

"Joseph! Let the child teach us." A woman planted herself next to him with a plop, wobbly as she was. "I want to draw. "

Sam nodded, and added, "I rather thought you could paint, today, Ma'am."

Jake watched as the old people filled in seats and began to play with the supplies, one calling out, "I like this girl. So much better than the other entertainment they hire."

"Paul!" The same lady interrupted, smearing black paint on her papery arm as she gestured, "She is a patient. Not hired, as I have told you a thousand and one times. Now cease in your caterwauling, I'm trying to paint my cat."

"Your cat has been dead for 50 years!" The man shot back, "What does it matter if it's not perfect? You can't even remember what you ate for lunch!"

"Well, I like that!" The woman huffed. "60 years of marriage, only to be talked to like that."

Jake grinned. He really did like old people. He wondered what he'd be like, as an old man. Would he still enjoy running around after Sam, trying to keep her from getting into trouble? What would they do for fun? Would they still enjoy car rides, when he couldn't see to keep them in the lane?

He thought briefly about home, the ranch, their work. Would they still be training horses, or would they have long ago passed that on to someone else, someone they'd trained, raised, ma-... He forcefully put a stop to his thoughts, knowing he had Matrona to blame. Punnett squares about Sam's ears were a little much, even for him. She wasn't a pea plant, after all, and human genetics were much more complex.

Jake was slowly starting to see that so much of what he did, what he prided himself on, was based on abilities and skill-sets he wouldn't always have. This injury had taught him so much about physical wholeness, soundness, and he felt a pang of understanding for Sam. She felt like she had lost everything that made her, her. He only wished he could show her, prove to her that she had not. She was still her. How she could need any more proof was beyond him. She was sitting in a room full of old people, and having fun. If that wasn't proof enough, he didn't know what would be.

As Sam directed and encouraged the art lesson, a lady sat down next to him on the chair that was actually a loveseat. "So nice to see Sam looking better. She was right depressed when she started sneaking in here. She'd never touch the supplies, just sit, staring at blank canvases. She'd bolt like a funny rabbit if we came in, but eventually, why, she came to know us, and we her." She looked at him archly, "I assume the nurses in the upstairs ward have discovered our interloper?"

"No, Ma'am." He paused, even as he was unable to stop himself from talking to the kindly lady, who reminded him quite a bit of Grandma Ely, before she died. "I'm actually her friend from home."

"Oh?" The woman spoke, pushing her glasses up on her nose.

Sam began to help lady he learned was named Linda with her cat. The woman spoke after a few bars of silence between them, "She's a good girl, you hear? Comes in here three, four times a week, just to help and talk to the old fogies. Most people forget we're here, you know."

"Ma'am." He didn't know what to say. Sam felt...forgotten. Why else was she so in tune to people here? Jake's stomach knotted when he realized that she felt a sense of kinship with them. He felt raw and bleeding inside, that she could be in so much pain, so much that even strangers saw it, and still try to take care of these old people, to give them joy in art when she herself couldn't find any.

"We're old, not stupid." The woman said archly. She paused to listen to the cacophony of students, which masked their conversation, "We know she's right ill. But we also know that she's a nice girl. Life's been tough on us all, but it shouldn't be harder than it has to, you hear?"

Jake noticed that Sam's left hand trembled as she helped another lady, but it was a wonderful drawing from what he could see. Jake knew that unless someone happened to be staring at Sam, you couldn't tell that the teacher had nearly refused to touch the eraser, or that her hands shook when she did. Sam glanced over at him, a small, hesitant smile on her face.

Jake was spun back to his Grandfather's living room, listening to her fiddle with his record player while drawing something. She'd looked up at him, then, and smiled, brightly. How was he to know that a week later, a mere seven days, his entire world would be ripped apart and he'd spend nights wondering if she'd ever draw again? Unbidden, his eyes clouded over. God, she was still her. Thank God. She was still her. Being such a brat, forcing him to face his emotions in the room full old people. Sam looked up then, and really did smile brightly. It was a smile just for him.

_'Cause when push comes to shove_

_You taste what you're made of_

_You might bend til you break_

_'Cause it's all you can take_

_On your knees, you look up_

_Decide you've had enough_

_You get mad, you get strong_

_Wipe your hands, shake it off_

_Then you stand, yeah, then you stand_

_Stand,_ Rascal Flatts

"Sam?" Jake asked, before they reached Regina in the waiting area, after OT. "Why was the therapist so ticked with you?" He recalled that the brunette woman had seemed resigned over something and that Sam couldn't get out of tiny entry to a still smaller room fast enough.

Sam rolled her eyes, but even she couldn't hide the truth from him, "I won't draw for her. She wants it to be a tool for recovery." She started walking down the hall, the chair rolling easily on tile.

"Oh?" Jake asked, stopping her with a hand on her shoulder. She stopped rolling, staring out the window the lined the modernist hallway. He hated that they had to steal moments of privacy, moments that used to be so easy to find, were now rarer than Dallas' steaks.

"I won't..." She continued, with conviction, "I won't let them take art from me, too. They've got everything else under a microscope, I won't let them have my soul, too." Sam finished.

"You'll paint again, Sam, when you're ready." Jake swore, thinking over a conversation they'd had last night, he knees pressed into his as she'd confessed her fear of drawing anything and the anger she felt about it.

"Don't be sure." She muttered.

But Jake was sure. He was certain. There was too much light inside of Sam for it to be bottled up forever. Sam was like the aurora borealis. Her inner light, much like her art, wasn't visible to the world all the time, but when the colors exploded forth, they expressed some part of the human experience that was completely and totally once in a lifetime in its beauty. Such truth and honest expression couldn't be locked away forever.

Sam would paint again. Sam was strong, holding her own independence against a world that wanted her to die to her self expression, her privacy, and he marveled at her ability to stand alone for what she cherished. He knew it would be easy to give up, and give in, but she was too strong and independent, too solid in her convictions, for that even to cross her mind.

Regina cut him off before he could reply, "Hey, y'all! Let's get going, shall we?"

Sam nodded, and Jake's hand dropped off her shoulder as she moved away. He would have held on, if he'd known what their return to Sue's would bring.

Back at Sue's, a message on the machine announced its presence via a little red button and a beep in the dial tone. Sam pressed play with some trepidation as Regina made her way into the kitchen. Jake followed, as the message machine ran through a few other calls. When he returned, they only waited 30 seconds, and then, her father's number was read out by the robotic voice.

Her father's voice filled the living room, "Hey, Sammy..." Wyatt paused, "I know Jake is right there, so I just want to tell you both...You were right, Jake. I've talked to Sue just now, and I'm planning on driving out tomorrow. I'll see you by midmorning. It'll be nice..." He cleared his throat, "real nice...just to see you." The beep resonated, signaling the end of the call.

"Woah." Sam said. "What did you say to him?" She looked at her hands, at the brushburn from the left wheel that had imprinted on her hand.

"Nothing," Jake began, "That he didn't need to hear..." He pressed an Ensure into her hands.

"I hate this." She said, lifting the can in a mock salute, as he sat down next to her.

"I know." Jake breathed. He hated it, too, that she was knocking back vanilla shakes, just to keep going. Sam was so strong. He couldn't do. When Mom had tried to make him drink one, he'd dumped it down the sink after three sips, and then threw up. She hadn't pushed the issue again.

"I don't mean just this swill." Sam said, pressing herself into his side.

Jake took initiative, and scooted her to her left, cuddling her close, because he needed to do it. He rested his head against her body, and realized that she was holding him, even as she was practically in his lap. He felt so much confusion. He wasn't strong and independent like Sam was. He needed her. He needed her, because he only ever felt safe in her arms. Wyatt confused him. It was hard for him to admit that a man he'd revered so much growing up could be wrong, even though he knew that Wyatt had been telling him that he was right. There was no joy in his victory. He was angry, angry because it was hollow, and he still felt like he had lost. It tasted like ashes, because Wyatt's admission threw their plans into a tailspin.

Wyatt's admission had shown him, though, that things had come so far. And yet, Jake felt as though they were wandering in the desert, heading for a place he knew existed but could no longer see. Jake was, he realized, walking by faith. He knew that his upmost faith would always be in the things he could sense, no matter that he was deeply religious. Right now, all he could sense was the completeness that only came from being around Sam. Her hand found its way to his chest, to his heart. They were in this together. They just needed to keep going, keep moving forward, even if their final destination was beyond their comprehension.

_I'd sure hate to break down here_

_Nothing up ahead or in the rear-view mirror_

_Out in the middle of nowhere, knowing_

_I'm in trouble if these wheels stop rolling_

_God help me keep me moving somehow_

_Don't let me start wishing I was with him now_

_I've made it this far without crying a single tear_

_I'd sure hate to break down here_

_Break Down Here, _Julie Roberts

**Hey, everyone! Thanks for the reviews! **

**So I try to have a theme/thesis for each chapter, did you notice that? I feel like the point I'm trying to make about independence and strength being expressed in all kinds of ways might be a little too obvious so I will make it even more obvious and just tell you what I tried to show you. In for a penny, as they say. The thesis of the chapter was this inquiry Sam made taken from the chapter text: "could she be a strong, independent, person, without actually being independent and strong?"**

**And, obviously, the premise is flawed because she hasn't defined her terms and realized that she is strong and independent. Yet. Still, I tried to argue that the answer is yes, because tying your shoes doesn't make you strong and independent. It's the bigger things, and Sam has less trouble there than she's willing to give herself credit for, as I tried to illustrate through Jake. I hope he's not too OCC this update. Thoughts? **

** Not that I haven't hammered you over the head with the point enough. Sorry! **

**Also, the title song is ****_Still Standing _****by Pharoahe Monch. The track features Jill Scott. Run, don't walk to YouTube, and listen to it, and the other songs. **

**Please Review. **


	9. They Call the Wind Mariah

_Spent sometime in San Francisco_

_I spent a night there in the can_

_They threw this drunk man in my jail cell_

_I took fifteen dollars from that man_

_Left him my watch and my old house key_

_Don't want folks thinkin' that I'd steal_

_Streets of Bakersfield, _Dwight Yoakam & Buck Owens

Jake frowned, as he yawned, "He won't care if the dishes are done, Sam."

"Have you met my father?' Sam said, as she lifted the drainboard to drain the dishes more quickly. Her hand wobbled, and Jake steadied her from behind. His body supported hers, while his hand took up most of the weight of the dishboard.

"Sam, the only thing he cares about is seeing you." Jake replied, even as she turned on the hot water to wash away the grime from what could be kindly called Sue's attempt at cooking dinner. Her aunt had been flattered that they'd volunteered to clean up her mess, and had wandered off to watch her soap opera. Sam had ignored the dishes until last, having tided everything she could get her hands on since they heard Wyatt's voice on the machine hours before. Jake ignored the smell of overcooked kale as he added, "He knows that this isn't home."

"You know that there are standards he has, Jake. You know that..." Sam broke off, quickly, with an indrawn breath. She pushed up, stretching, to remove some of the tension from her back.

Jake's fingers felt the knotted muscles in the small of her back, and Sam made an inarticulate sound of pleasure.

Jake felt a surge of something he could not name racing in his blood. It felt metallic, and harsh, and he wished with all his might that Wyatt would have just shown up, unannounced. "What I know, Sam, is that you're shaking. You're tired. Tired people sleep." He reached around her and shut off the water.

"I'll sit for awhile." Sam agreed, baldly. "I...can't feel anything much below my knees."

It was anger, he realized, that he felt. Anger at Wyatt. Anger at the fact that Sam was such a decent human being, who wanted so much to please and honor a father that had not sought to honor her in return. With that, Jake scooped her up, and left the kitchen.

"Jake!" Sam cried, "Sue is watching her Soap."

He ignored her scolding, and replied nonverbally, raising an eyebrow as they entered the bathroom. Jake was glad to find the bathroom tidy, from where Sam had done a million little things. It bore the handprint of her labors. It felt, in the places that she had tidied, a little like River Bend. The whole apartment smelled like lemons, and he'd spent the evening following her around, trying to help, only to be told he didn't clean correctly.

The shower chair was in the middle of the tub, and with a silent plea for permission, Jake set Sam down upon it, sideways, facing outwardly. "What are we doing in here?" Sam said.

"Where are the bath salts?" Jake asked. He glanced at the gleaming counter. They'd been lying out, underneath the can of aloe Sam rubbed into the brush-burn from her wheelchair. After her efforts, the bathroom was tidy, if not as clean and organized as she would have liked.

Sam replied, catching on to what he was about, "In the cupboard where they belong."

"Hm." Jake replied, locating the bath salts with ease. "You okay?" He moved towards her as she shifted around.

She rolled her eyes, as she hooked a foot over the tub and turned. "If I wasn't..." she continued pivoting, moving her left leg up and over the edge, "you'd know."

Jake took her meaning, and switched on the faucet, letting warm water flood the basin of the tub. "Too warm?" He asked, feeling the heat rise.

Sam was pulling up her yoga pants legs, bunching them up at the knee. Leaning forward, Sam grabbed the dial, "Too cold."

Jake backed away, and handed her the bag of bath salts. "She uses the girly ones." Sam said, wrinkling her nose at the smell that wafted up from the bag. Roses weren't his thing, either. They kind of reminded him of Grace's perfume.

"What are you, four?" Jake chided, amused by her expression. It was good, he knew, to see Sam care about the little things, to see her fully present in the moment. Her smile grew from the teasing.

"I probably would love these if I were." Sam replied, tossing a heavily scented handful into the water. Jake added some epsom salt as she asked, "Well?"

"Well, what, Brat?" Jake asked, putting away the bags.

"I'm not putting on a show, here." Sam said, "You have to do it, too."

"What?" Jake said, looking at her warily. The water was churning in the tub, and the steam was filling the room. He had to do what, exactly? There was nothing left to clean. She'd done it all, and he had tried to help, and Sam had just blustered at him and...

Sam's voice called to him, "Take off your shoes."

"What are you going to do?" Jake asked, not liking her tone one bit. Sam shut off the water, having let it fill to the tops of her ankles.

"Ask you, very nicely, to share my water..." She continued, flicking some scented water towards him.

Jake saw through her expression easily. Sam wasn't asking. She wasn't even telling. She was demanding his compliance. "Strong arm me, you mean."

"Maybe." Sam replied, sighing as she wiggled her toes. "Come on, sit on the edge."

"Sam, you're crazy." Jake scoffed, even as his sneakers hit the fluffy pink carpet. The fabric of the shag rug felt like strange under his toes, once his socks were gone. Even stranger was the heat of the water, swirling over his toes, so unlike the washing they got in the shower.

"I'm brain damaged, be nice." Sam scolded him as his toes settled beneath the water. To make the small space work, the front of his knee bumped into the side of hers, and Sam leaned slightly to her left. He bore her slight weight on his side, angled as he was, easily.

The magnitude of her words hit him like a 2x4, and Jake inhaled quickly. "I didn't mean..."

"Can't we talk about it?" Her words were soft, haunted. The steam from the water rose to sit heavily between them, and her chest rose and fell in the silence that beat between them as he struggled to reply.

"You want to?" Jake ventured, wondering how days and weeks of torture and silence had culminated in this moment. She smelled of bleach and roses, and the pain in her face was palpable. He couldn't tell, for once, how much of it was mental and how much of it was physical. He wished that he could take away the anguish he heard in her voice as easily as he could help her to remedy sore and swollen feet.

The water lapped between them. Sam started to speak, closed her mouth, and forced out. "No, but I don't want to not to." There was a note of seriousness there that belayed her former good humor.

"I just..." He understood, breathing in steam that made her hair frizz. She wanted to know that she could say anything, feel anything, and know that she had a sounding board in him. She did. Even if she said, "I blame you, Jake." or "I hate you." or worst of all, "Go away." he would listen. He would do what she asked, even as he knew that he did not have the fortitude to leave her. Walking away again would kill him. He couldn't do it, and he prayed she never asked it of him. He wanted to stay with her always, know her when she grew old, so that he could look at her and say, "D'you remember, Brat, that night seventy years ago, when you smelled like kale and roses?"

"I know..." Sam seemed to catch something her couldn't hide from his face, as she'd accompanied her whisper with the briefest of a hugs. In that moment, the smell of bleach and burned, stuck-on kale wasn't so gross. Jake leaned in, because underneath it all, he could smell mint. Mint, to him, meant peace. Peace and...

Sam's eyes glittered, and widened as she ran her tongue over her chapped lips. Unconsciously, Jake mirrored the tilt to he saw her make with his own head.

Jake jumped a foot, splashing water, when Sue spoke, "Who's throwing a pool party without me?" Sue stood watching them from the door, wearing a silk kimono style robe over her pajamas. "Sammy, you should invite the entire class if you're going to be having this much fun."

"How was your soap?" Sam asked, as she pulled away from him with an indrawn breath. Jake was glad she'd looked away. His hands were shaking.

Jake made move to get out of the room, "No, stay, Jacob, don't be silly." It felt silly, though. It felt wrong, and invasive to be in this room with Sue. She was doing intensely private things, and she seemed not to care that she had an audience.

"Oh, you know." Sue said, rummaging through the tidied bathroom, "Christophe left Yael because she's carrying the DiFranko heir. He doesn't remember, but really, the baby is his because when he got amnesia she posed as his maid to help him get his memory back." She began to wash her face, speaking with rounded words, "And well, while that didn't prove fruitful, her extra-circulars certainly did."

"Sue!" Sam burbled, as her aunt scrubbed at her face. Jake knew that he was blushing, too.

"Oh, hush." Sue scoffed, wiping off the wash quickly, with a towel Sam had folded with precision. Jake wondered why she'd had to go for the nice one that was clearly laid out for show, and saw a crestfallen look cross Sam's face.

Sam saw him look, and communicated their prior agreement that those shows were little more than trash, or useless time burners at best. He nodded, and she bit her lip. Obviously, Sue's behavior was distressing to her. He flicked a glance at Sue, and Sam's eyes clearly said, "Watch."

The wash was quickly replaced by something else one her skin. It was clear, and came out of a bottle. He looked at Sam, who rolled her eyes. Did all women put all this stuff all over their faces? "You've bred your animals, Sammy, surely."

"Not the same thing at all, Sue!" Sam corrected. Jake agreed with her, privately, but he was too embarrassed by the situation Sue had found them in and too confused by Sue's nonchalant behavior after all of Sam's work, to speak.

Sue laughed, and shot Sam a knowing look he couldn't read through the mirror, pulling a jar out from the neat row Sam had placed them in. He watched in horror as Sue put little dots of a white cream all over her freckles. He hoped that Sam didn't use that. If he found that she did, her bottle would quickly find its way to the trash. Why would anyone want to get rid of their freckles? Surely it wasn't safe, to try, anyway. He wondered why on earth so many people hated their bodies, to the point that they tried to change them, and then put them all out there, in the same breath.

"I'm not a prude!" Sam smiled, even though Jake knew she was really looking at the fact that her aunt had not put the vials of cosmetic stuff back in the row Sam had placed them in hours ago, "You can see my ankles!" Her smile didn't reach her eyes.

"And lovely ankles they are, Sammy." Sue turned around, slapping at her cheeks, leaving her face red. Droplets of water went all over the counter. "Get to bed folks, Wyatt says he'll be in at lunchtime. We all know that means sunup. Forester time is so early. Don't worry about those dishes. They're fine."

"We have our time?" Sam asked. Jake wished she'd smile for real. She looked like a kicked puppy.

"It was not a compliment, love." With that, Sue swept out of the room, leaving the counter looking as though a hurricane had hit it. At least the towel had made its way into the hamper, he thought.

Sam sighed, and said, "We'd better go."

"I'm not sure Sue appreciates..." Jake began, looking around the bathroom. Her aunt wasn't dirty, just careless in a way that Grace Forester would never have tolerated, not even for one second. Sam had grown up being taught that a clean house was a happy, functional house, and it seemed she'd learned Grace's lessons well. No doubt she wanted to pay Sue back, somehow, even though her aunt hadn't asked for compensation.

"Blame Gram." Sam said, "I couldn't let..." She looked around the formerly pristine bathroom, and sighed.

"You feet feel better?" Jake asked, pulling the plug in the bottom of the tub. The rubber stopper floated to the surface as the water drained away. Jake removed his own feet from the water, and used a towel from the rack to dry them. He noted that Sam's feet didn't look as swollen as they had.

Sam took the towel, and leaned down to dry her own feet, once the water was gone. Jake's hand on her left elbow allowed her to maintain a sense of balance, and she dried her feet quickly, feeling for the first time as though she was secure, and wouldn't fall.

Sam stepped out on to the rug, allowing Jake to easily pull her up from the chair, once her feet were out in front of her as she sat sideways. Her heart thundered, when his touch exploded on her skin, feeling like the very best of sensations. She pulled away, because her injured mind was driving her insane.

All the while her feet had been soaking, she'd felt like something was going to happen, something wild, and right, and perfect. All evening they'd worked together, and it had been so easy to pretend, in her own mind, that they were home, and that things were okay, but as soon as whatever it was had felt palpable, Sue had arrived. Sam was equally downtrodden about it, and glad that she'd had a moment to pull herself together, so Jake couldn't guess as to her thoughts. She frowned at the dirty towel, and the ring the bath salts had left in the tub. A clean house had been nice while it lasted.

Later, after the apartment was quiet, Sam's mind began to spin, as it often did, before she could push the thoughts away. She knew Jake was confused, concerned, about her insistence that she clean up. The truth was too hard to put into words. Sam wanted to come home. If she could prove to Dad that she was normal, maybe her father would relent and allow her to come home.

Sue hadn't been happy with her. She had offered to help Sam clean up, but Sam passed it off as wanting to help with the dinner dishes. How Sue could not cook was a mystery to her. It wasn't hard, but Sam couldn't help with that, because she couldn't get near enough to the stove while sitting, and she knew she'd burn herself if she tried to cook on Sue's range while standing. It wasn't her place to shout out directions when she wasn't doing the work. After all, Dad always said that if you didn't do the work, you didn't get to help in making the decisions. After dinner, she was so tired of feeling so powerless, that she'd had to contribute somehow, so that she would earn the right to participate.

She had worked so slowly, felt so inept and slovenly. Chores that should have taken all of five minutes had taken far longer, and she had lost her energy far sooner than she ever had before. The quality of her chores, she knew, had been nothing like Gram would have held up as acceptable, though she knew this wasn't her house. This wasn't her home. There was only so much she could do, before it became rude and impossible to do any more.

Even after all that work, Sue hadn't seen her contribution for what it was. She'd tried to pay her aunt back. She tried to say thanks, but she didn't have the words. Sam felt a bit brushed aside, and knew that more anything, she was tired of feeling like a guest, tired of feeling like a barnacle, tired of being in a place where people didn't even speak the same metaphorical language. To her, a hard day's work was an expression of love for others, an expression of personhood and self-worth. How did Sue not get that?

_So take a good look at my face_

_You'll see my smile looks out of place_

_If you look closer, it's easy to trace_

_The tracks of my tears..._

_The Tracks of My Tears_, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles

Despite the fact that they fell asleep late at night, Jake woke with a startled noise. The sun was barely up, and he thought for a second about rolling over, and going back to sleep, when he realized, quickly, that he was completely alone. He sat, hurriedly, and looked to the chair. Jake knew Sam had been in pain last night, waking up often to find some semblance of rest.

She'd done too much work last night, took too much on at once, all for Wyatt. His heart was racing. Jake realized blearily that Sam wasn't there, and her water bottle was gone. In the next second, he bolted up, grabbed the doorknob and moved into the living room. What if she'd fallen, getting more water?

"Sam?" He called, skidding to a stop in the kitchen. Sam was sitting at the table, half ready for the day. "Why are you up so early?"

"Dad's coming, Jake." She said, looking up from what he knew was her Bible, "I've got to be ready."

"Ready?" He repeated, sitting down next to her. "What do you mean?" They'd gotten most things together last night before heading to bed.

"He can't know, Jake." She said, "He can't know how long things take me. If I can do everything right, he'll let me come home." She confessed.

"Sam, it doesn't..." Jake tried, but he stopped when he saw a look cross her face. It didn't work like that. She did not have to earn her father's love, or his respect. If Wyatt didn't see how much Sam had improved, or how much coming home meant to her, he was a fool.

"This is an audition." Sam said, with a sardonic smile. "Big smiles, huh?"

"Sam, how long have you been thinking like this?" Jake asked. His heart was breaking. How could she think that anything anyone felt for her, thought of her, was conditional on anything? Love didn't work like that. The love people felt for her was unconditional, unfettered by expectations. "This whole time?"

"I'm not very good at not telling you things." Sam confessed, running her fingers over the thin paper of her Bible. "I tried."

"Why?" Jake asked, wondering if Jen had been running her mouth again. Her thumb caught on the edge of the book, and she looked up, smoothing out the crinkle in the fine paper as she replied.

"This isn't your problem." Her words were firm, almost as if she thought them to be true.

"Bull." Jake couldn't hide, didn't even try to hide, the scorn in his voice.

"Jake, there's my Bible right there!" Sam cried, shooting him a look full of reproach.

"I didn't cuss, Sam." He said, "And even if I did, Sam, you think the Book's got to be open for God to hear me do it?"

Sam rolled her eyes, "I woke up, about two hours ago, and I realized something."

"Hm?" Jake verbalized. His mind worked quickly. That meant Sam was functioning on four hours of sleep, if that.

"I've got to show Dad that I'm okay." Sam tried to explain.

Jake nodded, "You are okay." He paused. The circles under her eyes were heavy, and she was wrapped in his hoodie, as though she were freezing. It was fatigue, he realized, that chilled her."Aren't you?"

"Yes." She affirmed, clearly trying to set him at ease with a tiny, knowing, smile, "But you know Dad."

He did know Wyatt. He knew that Wyatt was confused, and conflicted. He knew that Wyatt was hiding things from everyone. He knew, most of all, that Wyatt would want, no matter what, for Sam to be happy. "Sam, please, come back to bed."

"No." She said, firmly. "I'm going to eat."

"You're hungry?" He clarified, excitement building within him.

"I said I would eat." She replied, with a smile, dashing his hopes that she was actually hungry. She was only eating to avoid eating later under Regina's assessing gaze.

"Okay." Jake replied, "What do you want?"

"Do you think we could manage something vaguely American?" Sam begged. Last night's dinner that Sue had insisted upon had been some sort of ethnic food that Jake hadn't liked either.

"Shoot. I was thinking French toast, Sam." Jake said, moving towards the fridge.

"It should qualify, if we use Sue's Wonderbread and margarine, right?" Sam replied, with a smile. Jake passed her a bowl, the milk, and eggs to set out. "How many do you want?"

"I don't know. Crack, like, four." He replied, as he passed her a fork. She took it and rose to go wash her hands.

"Jake, one egg makes three slices with that thin kind of bread!" Sam replied, "You don't need a dozen slices of french toast." Jake knew that Sam felt a surge of pride, sharing what she knew. He could hear it in her voice, vibrant and alive.

"Sam," Jake corrected, setting the pan on the tiny stove, "I'm a growing boy."

She relented, "I'll crack two eggs for you, then."

Jake felt nothing short of apprehension after breakfast was over. The Sam he knew was fading away. The girl with honest eyes and an expressive soul was being buried away. The woman with a shuttered expression and harder eyes was clearly bubbling forth from her, and he didn't like it. He didn't like that she was hiding her vulnerability from her father.

When Sue asked her a question before she left for work, her reply was distant, void of emotion and very factual. Jake knew she was gathering her strength, like an opera singer resting her voice before she went out on the stage and filled an music hall without the benefit of a microphone. He wandered to the couch, worry churning in his gut. After a time, Sam sat down next to him. He found himself holding her, knowing that when whatever she was feeling spilled forth, they'd figure it out together.

_If there ever was a time_

_That I could use your trust in me_

_And if there ever was a reason_

_For me to get down on my knees_

_And if there's any way (if there's any way)_

_That you could love me anyhow_

_If you ever had much faith in me_

_I could use a little now_

_Believe Me Baby (I Lied)_, Trisha Yearwood

Sam was ready. She had prepared for this, to build her case that she was ready to go home. The doorbell rang. She had been waiting on it for a good hour, counting down the minutes before they had to get to leave. Sam called, "The doorbell!" as she rose to go to the front door. She pushed herself up from the couch, first sliding to the edge, then putting her weight on her feet, then shifting forward, thinking "Nose over toes" and pushed up. Getting to her feet took two tries. Sam walked unevenly towards the entry only to see her father's tall form coming towards her.

"Jake answered." Dad said, "Hi, honey."

"Dad!" Sam said. "Glad you're finally here!" Her mind was not on her words, bummed as she was from all the effort of getting up, only to be beaten to the door. It was small, but it felt huge in the moment. He had to see that she could get the door.

"Nice to see you, too." He said, awkwardly, hugging her. His jacket was spritzed with and rain, and Sam felt a contentment she'd missed. His touch felt like the softest cotton, and Sam didn't know what to make of it. Her father was here, but she felt on edge, like she had to impress him. She didn't feel safer, not like she always had when Dad was around. Was she growing up? Was that what being older felt like?

Sam didn't sit. Instead, she turned to the table, and found the headphones to her iPod. Taking them, she saw that they were a knotted mess. She began to pick through the knots as her father began to talk. Jake, walking into the room, greeted her father. They seemed to be getting on okay, for which Sam was glad. She wasn't really paying attention to her surroundings, though, as forcing her fingers to comply with her mind took some effort.

Her father asked, breaking off an ongoing conversation with Jake, "Do you need help?"

Sam paused, losing her progress in the right string, and said, "No."

Dad made the mistake of asking, "You sure?"

Sam said, coolly, "I'm fine." She paused, awkwardly, "We were just getting ready to leave for the rehab. Do, do you, do you want to come, Dad?" Sam shoved the earbuds into Jake's hands. Jake's gaze told her that, no, she hadn't failed, but she knew better. He was only trying to soften the blow of her hurt. Her father had already seen her fail once. How hard was it to untangle some plastic strings? Oh, she thought, she should have thought of it beforehand. Now Dad knew just how pathetic she was.

"It's why I'm here, Sam." Her father said, hat in his hand.

"I thought you were here to visit." Jake said, "Sir." Sam looked at Jake, glad her father couldn't see her warning him about the angry twist to his tone that her father couldn't pick out in his even words. Sam could hear it easily, though, and wouldn't have it. Things had to go as well as possible. Perfect was clearly out of the question, now, but she hadn't failed the test yet.

"Actually, I came to talk to you, too, Jake. While Sam's doing her work, we can talk." Dad tried.

Regina came into the room, and said, "Miss Sam, if we don't go soon, we'll be late. Your Daddy can meet us there, I'm sure..." She paused, seeing Dad there. "Oh. You're here."

"Hello." He replied, "Wyatt Forester." The man, Regina saw, was tall and thin, worn down like sharpened steel. He was a whippet of energy, and Regina saw the fear in his eyes. She tried to make the man feel better. She was a nurse, after all, and not all pain was physical. Her heart broke for him.

"I'm Regina. I won't stand on formality." She smiled, "Now, Mr. Forester, I'm right glad to meet you. However, we do have a schedule. I'll just go get my things."

Wyatt nodded as Regina went to gather her bag. "Sammy, I was thinking we could go to lunch, after." Wyatt added.

"This isn't a vacation..." Jake started, but Sam cut him off with a look, one he knew all too well.

Sam faltered, taking back her did it matter, now? Dad would see her worn, and wrung out like a dishcloth. Her plan to show him she was well had already failed. She hated her iPod. "Uh, sure. We can."

"Pass it over, honey." Her father said. He took the iPod, and said, "See, if you slide the top out over, you lose the knot, and you can do the smaller ones. See?"

Sam knew that. She knew how to do it, she just couldn't make her fingers comply with her brain. Sometimes, they weren't nimble enough. It didn't help that she felt stressed and pressured.

Jake cleared his throat. "It's raining pretty heavily now, Sam."

"Seriously?" Sam replied, as she'd been hoping the drizzle would keep going. It would now take longer to get outside. Could this day get any worse?

_Long as I remember the rain's been comin' down._

_Clouds of myst'ry pourin' _

_Confusion on the ground._

_Good men through the ages, _

_Tryin' to find the sun;_

_And I wonder, still, I wonder, _

_ Who'll stop the rain?_

_Who'll Stop the Rain_, Creedence Clearwater Revival

Sam looked out the door, and nearly groaned. It was pouring buckets. Jake came up beside her, a tomcat grin on his face. "We going to let a little rain hold us up?"

Hardly. Sam smiled. "Let's roll, Ely." Turning around, she called in to the living room, "Regina, would you come with me, please?"

Sam fell into her element. There was a problem before her, one she could solve. She and Jake were back in action, playing their game. Nature was challenging them, but they were a team. This was nothing they hadn't faced before. And maybe, this little downpour wouldn't have caused her a problem before now, but it did. Ella said that acceptance was the first step of adaptation, and adapt she would. Maybe, if she could show Dad that she could adapt easily to challenges, he would let her come home.

Regina appeared, having been talking with her father, and said, "Are you canceling, then?"

"No." Sam said, firmly, "I just need to change my shoes." Sam whispered the last, hoping that Regina would pick up on the need to be discreet.

As was her way, she did, going into the room with the hospital bed. Sam followed, leaving Dad and Jake alone. "I'm just going to finish getting ready." Dad called back his assent, and Sam plopped down on the bed. She had been on her feet, moving around, for too long.

"Regina?" Sam asked, "In that box, there should be a pair of boots. Can you dig them out for me?" Sam avoided thinking of the fact that Gram had sent some of her necessities down, while she was still in the hospital, before she'd even been transferred to the rehab. Seeing the contents had ripped through her like a knife. She had shoved the lid down, unable to look at the contents, tools for a life she no longer led.

Seeing her boots in Regina's hands should have felt like a victory. It should have felt like confidence, as Regina helped her to slide them on. It should have felt like control, as she had to tell Regina how to tie them. Finally, Sam leaned down, and tried to pull the laces herself. Seeing the boots on her feet didn't feel like confidence, or control. She felt like a clown, like a poseur in her own life. The shoes were a haunting reminder of all that she'd lost.

She did not think of the time she'd had to cut the laces, using her knife nimbly to saw through the thick laces. She did not think of all the times the small heel had kept her in the saddle, nor all of the times they'd kept her feet dry in the La Charla. She thought, instead, of the fact, that these boots would not be deep in clay and mud, but rather stark against asphalt and pavement, and the metal footplates of her chair. "Thanks, Regina."

Finally, her fingers, with Regina's help, tied the laces. Regina tossed Sam's sneakers into her bag, so that Sam would have them for her session. Sam stood, as Regina said, "Well, now, those boots sure look loved. Come on, dear, we'll be late."

Sam did not reply, leaving the room quickly. Every cowgirl loved her work boots. Everyone said they ought to have glitter kickers, but the real measure of a girl, she'd always thought, was not the brand of her dress boots, but rather the care she put into her work ones.

"Which car are we taking?" Sam asked, sitting down, uncaring that she would have to stand again soon. It was really hard to keep walking around, and even though she was working on building up stamina, the pain that shot through her from overuse was staggering. Jake saw, she knew, because he saw everything, and made a nonverbal promise to take up some of her weight when she next stood.

"We can take the truck." Dad offered. Sam nodded, and looked to Jake, a fresh question in her eyes.

"Should be fine. He's got a good spot." Sam understood that it was close to the house, and not too far to walk over the slippery pavement. "Where's your coat?"

"A little rain won't hurt." Sam denied, but she acquiesced as Jake put on his own coat, and grabbed hers from the bedroom. She saw Dad's eyebrows go up, being that Jake had just walked right in there, and returned with his own things. She couldn't think of an explanation that wouldn't cause an overreaction the size of a Fat Man at Bikini Atoll in 1946.

Jake held out her coat. Sam put it on, glad that her father was talking to Regina again, glad that he couldn't see her fumble with the zipper. "You ready?"

"Sure, Sammy." Dad said. Actually, she had been talking to Jake, but she didn't need to say it. Jake had known that her words were for him. "Let's go, honey."

"Miss Sam," Regina began, "I'm switch to put the chair out from..." Sam recalled that she had asked Jake to put it in the Scout earlier, so as to make the transition to the car as fast as possible. She didn't want Dad to realize how long the whole process actually took, even at the best of times.

"Regina, I'm sure Jake won't mind doing it for you." Dad asserted, walking easily towards the door.

Sam stepped aside, shaking off the support that Jake had provided since she'd stood up. She hadn't expected that Jake would go, would defer to her father, but of course he would. Dad rarely asked him to do something directly, and when he did, why, Jake went. It was how things went. Sam tried to tramp down the urge to say, "No." to beg him to stay with her. She couldn't, though, because in doing so, she'd have to admit that the steps were slippery when soaked, and that the rain often made her blink hard, meaning she could easily lose her balance if she wasn't careful.

Jake shook his head, "I'll go, once Sam's in the car."

Sam exhaled, not knowing her breath had frozen in her lungs. To fall in front of her father would have been horrible. She would not fall down the steps. Dad heard her, and looked embarrassed, "I didn't think, Sam, about you needing help."

She shook her head, basking in the moment of her father's care. "It's only because of the rain." Sam promised herself that her fear of Jake not being there to catch her if she fell had everything to do with the rain, and nothing to do with the fact that she wanted him near to her.

With that, Sam moved towards the door, expecting to lose her footing as she often did when standing in water. Her boots, heavy and much missed on her feet, kept her footing sure. Still, when she took the first step down, Jake was there, in front of her, his right hand in her left.

The sound of the rain was deafening to her ears. The sound of it hitting the stairs and pavement sounded nothing like the rain at home. For a second, Sam wished with all her might, that they were home, and that her hat was on her head.

"Sam!" Jake said, above the rain, "Focus!"

"Jake?" She asked, getting down another step.

The rain ran quickly over his jacket. She knew he was dying to pick her up, and head to the car. Sam knew, too, he could do it easily enough, but in difference to her wishes he said,"Brat, stay with me."

Sam grinned, and squeezed the hand offered to her, though she looked down as she slowly went down the steps. "I'm terrified..." She whispered, "that someone's going to come out." The neighbors in the duplex, she meant, and that they would fall down the steps in the shuffle. Of course, he knew what she meant, without her having to spell it out, and she took comfort in the fact that they knew each other so well that they could trust each other with their fears without the need for words to express them.

Jake spoke, over the rain, "Well, if Quinn decides to come out, I'll be sure to let him you're not going to be happy."

"Don't be mean." She said, making it to the landing. He was such a liar, and Quinn would knock him into New England, if Jake was joking about something that was so untrue. The next step was the large one, and she had to leverage nearly all of her weight to make it down, feeling the strain in her hip flexion as she did. "I'm down!" She huffed, even as she felt like she was falling. "I'm down."

"Yeah." Jake said, as she pressed up against him. It was then that she heard an easy, lazy tomcat happy, note in his voice, one that made her shiver, and not from the cold. It was probably because her hair was soaking wet, now, as her hood had fallen back. He cleared his throat quickly, "Three more, Brat."

Within moments, they were down the steps. Sam wiggled her toes as they bolted, moving as quickly as possible over the pavement. The door opened, and she was boosted into the truck quickly. Sam fell back over the seat, slip-sliding because her feet didn't reach the bar, and she was sitting on the hem of her coat. She couldn't move, couldn't turn, trapped by the fabric as she was.

Sam could feel Dad's gaze, heavy on them, as Jake pulled her up to sitting, wrapped and arm around her and said, "Boost." Jake's mustang eyes held hers fast, secure, as she unconsciously obeyed. He let go, and Sam put her hands down flat behind her on the seat, and pushed up, giving Jake enough space to push the coat up, allowing her to turn to sit correctly on the bench seat. His hands didn't linger, but she felt them, exploding like starbursts on her skin, even over her damp clothing.

By the time she'd finished turning, the door had shut and Jake was inside the truck. Heat blasted in the cabin. Sam was glad the shiver that passed down her spine could be blamed on the weather. She didn't know what it was.

The only words that were exchanged in the cab after that were Regina's directions to her father.

_I'm saving up dimes for a rainy day,_

_I got about a dollar laid away._

_The wind's from the south and the fishing's good,_

_Got a potbelly stove a cord of wood._

_Mama turns the leftovers into hash,_

_I'm doin' alright for country trash._

_Country Trash_, Johnny Cash

"Jake, let's go for a walk." Wyatt asked, pushing to his feet as soon as Sam rolled away.

Jake didn't want to go, but there was no way to deny Wyatt without explaining that he didn't like to leave Sam. She had begged him to not expose her weakness, and in protecting her, he had to deny his own needs. He had to be strong, even as he knew she was stronger.

The thing with the iPod had bugged him all morning. Wyatt had just had to take it from Sam, when anyone with eyes could have clearly seen she was getting there on her own. Wyatt, with a streak of pride the size of Texas, could not allow his only child her own pride. And still, she had smiled at her father, and thanked him for help she had not wanted.

"Okay." Jake stood, "I'll go tell Sam."

"We'll be back, Jake." Wyatt said, confusedly, ignored as Jake rose. He asked Regina, "What's this?"

Regina filled him in, as Jake walked away. "Sir, they don't go anywhere without telling the other."

"Oh." Wyatt said. Jake couldn't see the look on his face, but he could hear the confusion and the tinge of anger as he walked away. Like as not, Wyatt wanted to talk about the fact that he and Sam had taken their time getting to the car. It could have been done and over in thirty seconds, if Wyatt hadn't been staring them down the whole time, like he couldn't believe what he was seeing. They were working together, and they'd always done that, so Jake didn't understand why Wyatt looked so pensive.

He found Wyatt by the large door to the therapy room, and they left in the room in silence. What could Wyatt have to say? He hadn't said much all morning, although he hadn't had much time to do it. The car ride was short, and things had been hectic with the rain.

In the hallway, their strides matched evenly. Wyatt spoke, "Jake, I just want to thank you."

"For what?" Jake was apprehensive as they approached the alcove. Outside, a steady rain was still falling, fog rolling in from the bay. The bleak outdoors suited his mood fine. The rain had been fun, if only that he got to see Sam look up into the narrow strip of sky that the city offered, and inhale deeply, uncaring about the fact that they were racing across a wet parking lot, nearly fifteen minutes late for her appointment. Had they not had an entourage, likely there would have been a lot of laughter as he pushed the chair quickly, kicking up water from the puddles with the knobbly wheels. They probably wouldn't have cared about making the appointment. It would have been easy to justify goofing off, just because the moment was there, and the opportunity had presented itself. Jake knew he would have been content just to be with her, no matter when or even if they reached their destination.

"For...everything." Wyatt said, "You were right, son, and I needed to get my head on straight. I wasn't being fair to you both. It's hard, sometimes."

Jake didn't know what to say. Wyatt was thanking him for getting through to him. Jake didn't understand why. He'd expected hurt, anger, maybe even castigation. The man's gratitude was a lot to bear, and filled him with a rush of emotions. The words hung between them, unexpected and loaded. Just as Jake began to reply about how happy Wyatt's realization made him, the older man moved.

Shifting his weight, Wyatt took a folded scrap of paper out of his pocket, and said, "Here."

"What's this?" Jake asked, unfolding it. It was a check, drawn on Wyatt's account. Jake assumed it was a paycheck. "Wyatt, I haven't worked a day in weeks." He hadn't earned this money. The sum was more than he normally earned, anyway. He couldn't imagine how Wyatt hadn't seen that. Since starting the business up with Darrell, he'd taken less pay from Wyatt, simply because he'd worked less hours.

Wyatt met his startled eyes calmly. "Son, I know you're saving to finish school, and being here has got to have taxed what you've got saved up. I want you to take this..."

"Are you paying me to leave?" Jake cut him off, pain and betrayal racing through him, stealing his ability to think. This was low. His father taking his keys was almost forgivable, but if they thought he could be bought away, paid to leave San Francisco, they were absolutely insane. Were his own parents in on this?

"No, son." Wyatt shook his head, softly, "I'm trying to help you to stay."

After a moment of wonder and gratitude that Wyatt was going to stand down, let Sam and him be, Jake's blood boiled. They didn't need a cent from Wyatt to live life. He didn't need Wyatt to make his way in life. He valued Wyatt's tutelage, his training, but he was not beholden to him. He was not a sycophant. He couldn't be paid to fill a role, like a nanny or a nursemaid. What was Wyatt doing? Paying him to be Sam's friend? Paying him to betray her, to trade her loyalty and her support for a bit of cash and shame?

She trusted him to care for her, because she was his friend, because they were a team, not because he was being paid to do it. She had begged him, days ago, to be there because he wanted to be, not because he was obligated out of guilt or money. She knew that he was there for her, not because she was hurt, but because Sam was herself. He would not sell her out, not for anything, not even if it meant turning down the ability to work towards a secure life. "I don't need your money, Wyatt." Jake stated, "We don't need your damn money."

"I'm only trying to..." Wyatt broke off, startled, "She's my daughter. I don't expect you to take on..." Wyatt seemed uncertain, and broke off again, as though he was realizing something big.

He didn't expect what? What was so surprising? He didn't expect Jake would take care of his own family? Didn't expect that he could do what needed to be done, handle meeting their needs? "Let's get it out, right now, okay?" Jake bit out, "I won't take a cent, we clear?"

"Jake." Wyatt said, " I know how much gas you've been using. Haven't..."

He had been using a lot of gas, but what was it to Wyatt? He didn't need Wyatt to make his way. There was a certain level of pride a guy had. Wyatt had dealt them the hand they were playing, but he would not control the deck forever. If he took this money now, it would set a precedent, and worse yet, it would be a betrayal of Sam's trust in him. "Sam and I don't need your money to make it."

"What?" Wyatt exclaimed. "Son, you do work for me."

Oh. That's what this was. They were too intertwined, Jake saw, him and Wyatt. Wyatt would not use his job, his role as his boss, to influence the choices he made for...Well, the choices he made.

He saw clearly where Wyatt was going. He wouldn't "work" for Wyatt, to be his eyes in San Francisco. He would not do it. Suddenly, the order to move the chair made sense. He wasn't Wyatt's employee, one who was subservient to him, who was below him, not in this context. He had to define their relationship cleanly.

"No, I don't." Jake said. If Wyatt was going to make him choose, it was an easy choice. Heck, it wasn't even a choice, at all. "I quit, Wyatt. I'm done."

The new fracture in the hesitant mend they'd created this morning hurt, ripped him open. He thought they had done better, that the anger he had been feeling had faded as they'd talked, but pain still burned through him as Wyatt said, "Jake, you're not understanding me..."

"Consider this my notice." Jake said, resignedly. "I'll call Dallas, and square it away. I know some guys looking for work."

"Jake..." Wyatt tried to force the check in his hand. Seeing no other way to drive his point home, Jake took it, tore it in six pieces, and tossed it in the trash bin in the alcove. He couldn't bear this mess. Life did not come down to money. He would trade every cent he had, to know that Wyatt understood his position.

They were family. Family cared for one another. Family did not think about paybacks, about money, about the material things. Maybe, Jake thought, maybe Sam was more his family than Wyatt was. Why did people keep trying to say that their role in her life superseded his? They were friends. You couldn't chose who your parents were, but you could chose your friends, and he and Sam had chosen each other, above all others, even when everyone else had forsaken them.

"Jake?" Wyatt asked, horsely, something like pride shining in his eyes. Jake realized that he was standing in front of the trash can, staring at the fragments of the check, much like he heard the fragments of a formerly strong bond in Wyatt's voice. He had to focus on what held them together, or there would be nothing left, no reason for Wyatt to be standing before him.

"Come on." Jake replied, meeting the man's eyes, "Sam's almost done. We need to be there, when she is."

_Oh I know you can hear me_

_But I'm not sure you're listening_

_I hear what you're sayin'_

_But still there's something missin'_

_Whether I go whether I stay_

_Right now depends on_

_Whatever you say_

_Whatever You Say_, Martina McBride

The restaurant plan was thankfully canceled, due to the wind and rain. Sam was beat down, dead tired, as Kyla turned her out. She tried to hide it from Daddy, but she could not deny how nice it was to curl up on the sofa. After an awkward time of visiting, Jake excused himself to shower, and Sam sipped her bagged tea, wishing it was Gram's rose hip tea. She'd get the story out of Jake later, because she knew something had happened between them. "Dad?"

He replied, "Yeah, Sammy?"

"We...should talk." Sam began. She had to be the big girl, and start one of the conversations she dreaded most in her entire life.

Dad nodded, setting his own mug on the table in front of them, as he asked, "What do you think of it here?"

"It's not home, Dad..." Sam tried to be diplomatic, twisting her fingers in the throw that was on top of her. She would not knock Sue, who had been kind to her, but she was not willing to lie outright. She would withhold information about herself in her actions, in her deeds, but not in thought and word.

"It could be." Dad ventured, as they watched the wind blow and heard it howl outside the window before them.

Ice spread through Sam, as she begged him to explain, "Dad?" Would he really do that? Leave them, leave her, her mind corrected, leave her here?

"Isn't it easier, getting around, doing things, here?" He turned the question back around.

Sam paused, startled by his question. She didn't really have a point of comparison. She knew though that she needed to come clean, about how much planning and preparation had gone in to to today. She knew that her planning had created a lie so as to allow her to make it seem like life was easier here. It hurt to know that her falsehood had backfired on her. She wished, for a second, that she had been honest from the start. "No, Dad. It isn't." Her voice dropped to a whisper, "I'm not going to lie. I tried to, all day..."

"You tried to what, Sam?" Dad asked, softly.

Sam confessed, ready for his disappointment, "To lie. I tried to make you think that it was easy, here. But I spent hours getting ready." She continued, "I tried to show you that I'm okay. And I really am."

"Why would you do that, Sam?" Dad asked, looking her dead in the eye. Disappointment did not mar his face. Sam wondered why he looked so sad.

"Because I thought if I could make you see that I'm okay, you'd let me come home." Sam clarified. "But, the truth is, my life's going to be a struggle, no matter where I am, right now. I would rather have to work hard to function where I want to be. Maybe then, the challenge would mean something."

"Oh, Sammy." Dad said. His expression was shattered, "I didn't realize... I thought you were happy here."

Sam sniffed, venturing, "Ella thinks that going home would be good."

"Does she?" Dad asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Dad." Sam changed the subject, sorry to have brought up her sessions with Ella. Dad didn't hold much to talking things out like Ella stressed, "I've got to pick my battles. Let me come home."

"Sam, you can't make that call." Dad said, warily, shifting on the couch.

"No, Dad." Sam said, relying on a million conversations with Ella and Jake to admit the truth, "Only you can make it. I know that."

He said, "You do?"

"I'm trying to be as honest as I can." Sam said, "And honestly, Dad, I need to try. Will you let me?"

"Try?" He mused, like he hadn't heard the word before. Dad, leaned forward, abruptly, "Give me a few minutes." With that, he touched her face, his work roughened thumb resting under her mother's eyes. Clearing his throat, he stood, and walked away.

Sam felt numb inside. She had poured out her soul to her father, and he had walked away from her. She needed privacy. She needed to be left alone, she needed to cry. She needed Jake. Uncaring of anything, she knocked quickly on the bedroom door that was being used by Jake. She knew he'd be dressed, as no one ever left the bathroom without being clothed. "Jake?"

He didn't reply and so she waited another minute. She tried again, "Jake?"

"Miss Sam, he's in here." Regina said, happily.

Sam pivoted to come there, just as her father called out, "Come here, please."

Sam squared her shoulders, and moved the tiny distance into the kitchen. She didn't want to go in there. She knew what was going to happen. The point was driven home when Jake avoided meeting her eyes. Sam sucked in a breath. Dad had no doubt insisted that Jake go, though she knew that he wouldn't be gone for long.

Sam sat down, carefully, to avoid moving the chair about, "Yes?"

"Well, Sammy, I'm thinking that maybe you're right." Dad said, "I've been thinking I should do more listening to you kids. You can come home."

Did he really say that? Sam's mind begged her to continue listening, even as she wanted to bolt up and throw on her shoes. How funny that would be, to be standing by the door before the words were even out of his mouth.

A strangled laugh escaped her thinking up the image, as her father continued, "But only to see how things go. If it doesn't work, you're coming right back here, hear me?"

"Yes sir." Sam replied, knowing she'd die before letting herself fail this test. Sam looked to Jake, and she knew why he hadn't met her eyes before. He was grinning outright, his brown eyes aglow. Her own smile grew in response to his smiling eyes, and even across the room, they began to communicate, weighing out their plans. A raised eyebrow was all she needed to see to know that...

Her father cleared his throat, interrupting their conversation, "And Regina will come along, for the weekend, provided you get clearances from Dr. Francis and Ella."

"I can do that tomorrow." Sam promised, flicking a look at Jake. He agreed, with a side glance at the phone in the tiny kitchen.

Her father added, "And you'll come back here, for a while, even if things work out, to square things off."

"Yes." Sam promised, knowing that Jake would come back, too. A few more days one way or the other didn't really matter, not when she was coming home. Her heart was full to bursting, joy filling her.

Her father wasn't done yet. "And while you're home, we're going to make some tough decisions, Sam. School. Those things. There are things you need to know..."

Sam cut him off, with her sole concern, "Together?"

Her father nodded, with a smile. "Alright, go talk it out."

Sam didn't need to be told twice. Jake was on her heels. Wind howled outside, but Sam didn't hear it, not when she impulsively wrapped her arms around Jake in a hug filled with joy. We're going home, she thought, home. Jake wrapped his arms back around her in return, after a second's hesitation. Home. Sam inhaled, breathing in the scent of Jake's t-shirt. Home.

_I know, no matter what it takes_

_I'm coming home_

_I'm coming home_

_Tell the world that I'm coming home_

_Let the rain_

_Wash away_

_All the pain of yesterday_

_I know my kingdom awaits_

_And they've forgiven my mistakes_

_I'm coming home_

_I'm coming home_

_Tell the world I'm coming_

_Coming Home (Pt. II)_, Skylar Grey

**Hey, y'all! It's my one year anniversary! I first published something on FFN one year ago today. I guess you could call it my ficcaversary! Thank you for making the past year so wonderful. My life wouldn't be what it is without the friends I have in this fandom. **

**The chapter title comes from a Sam Cooke song that you must listen to, should you like good music. I happen to think it goes very well when the weather was blustery. ;-) **

**I'll be attending to reviews as soon as I hit publish. Thank you for the love and support. **

**Please Review. **


	10. Free and Easy (Down the Road I Go)

_Won't you take me where the poor man lives?_

_ It's where I call home _

_And can't you see that a breeze is just a change in pace? _

_And money can't buy my soul,_

_Because it comes from a hard earned place. _

_Southside of Heaven, _Ryan Bingham

Jake shifted from foot to foot, feeling every inch of his frame as he moved. He hadn't felt this way in years, not since he'd shot up in middle school. He felt gangly, overgrown, not quite suited to his frame. Sam was on the phone in the other room, and Jake was at loose ends, staring at his fingers, wondering if his hands were attached to his limbs, limbs that felt too long. He flexed his fingers, trying not to think of the words Sam had whispered last night. Regina, too, was waiting with baited breath for the word from the doctor, though she seemed content to knit.

He had spent all evening last night thinking, long after Wyatt left for home. He couldn't be bought. Was Wyatt really trying to say that it all came down to money, that Jake was still some boy who needed to be provided for, rather than a person who could provide? His hurt was quickly buried, under the tasks of making plans to go home, though, and he tried not to think about Wyatt Forester.

Sam called the doctors, before the close of business, and left messages. Ella, ever modeling the behavior she wanted to see from her clients, returned her call first thing. Dr. Francis had not been so prompt, and mid-morning found Sam sitting by the phone, drumming her broken nails and bruised fingers against the Queen Anne style end table that contained the house phone.

Jake, last night in the dark, came to a conclusion about his relationship with Wyatt. They could be civil, for Sam's sake. There would be no animosity from him, if the topic concerned Sam. No matter what Wyatt thought of him, Jake would do his best, no matter that it hurt that Wyatt thought so little of him.

Wyatt didn't seem all that angry at him, surprisingly, by the time that he left. He seemed to look at Jake as though he were puzzling out something, pulling out information like taffy, twisting it in his mind, and not liking the conclusion he'd come to. It couldn't be helped, though, and the man left for Darton County, without saying one word about taking Sam's things. It was just as well that the planning began after he left. An early dinner with him had gone on long enough, and he didn't stay for dessert.

Over Sue's tea service and a thankfully store-bought pie, it was arranged so that Regina could work her normal hours and have the evenings off just as she would in San Francisco. Sam called and left a message on her father's machine, but no one called back. Sam thought that was odd, but Sue promised she would try again as well, as she hugged them goodbye soundly. Cell phone reception was spotty at best in certain areas. They all wrote it off, as they'd just seen him yesterday. Jake had told his parents they were coming, and they'd offered to put Regina up, who agreed quickly to the use of the guest room.

Regina smiled, as her knitting needles clacked, "Sam was lucky to get the doctor on the phone so early."

Jake made an inarticulate sound of agreement. He didn't have the heart to tell Regina that it hadn't been luck that had gotten Sam what she wanted. It would destroy Sam's image of being such a "sweet girl" in Regina's eyes. Everytime Regina said something like that, Jake could barely keep from laughing until he fell on the floor. Luck comprised almost nothing of Sam's persistence. She called the doctor's practice at least five times, using every number she had to get the man on the line. Finally, her persistence paid off, and her call was returned. Probably, the man wanted to get her off his back. Jake left the room, giving her some semblance of privacy, a gift they'd determined to be rare indeed.

Jake stepped forward once, unable to wait any longer, and excused himself to the bedroom. He found his duffel bag, and began to work quickly, tossing his clothes into the bag with precision. His books and pillow were tossed atop the toiletries that topped the clothes. Finally, he added the Book. With an air of confidence, Jake pulled the zipper shut, elation rising within him. Sam had packed last night, but something had held him back from packing until it was sure thing. He was as sure as he could be, now. Why else would the conversation be taking so long?

He spun around on his heel and exited the room quickly. The other room, the one that held the hospital bed, contained several boxes that had been shoved in the corner. On top of the boxes sat a green bag with black netting. Sam's 4H duffel bag quickly was pulled open, and he stared at it. Memories of her using this bag hit him, memories of camping trips, and drives, and a million other things. It didn't matter now, where the bag had gone, for it was returning to its customary place in her closet. Jake hoped it would stay there forever. It hit him, looking at her bag, hard. They were going home.

This moment felt so different and full. Jake couldn't articulate why, but he felt a bloom of hope in his chest, whereas when he'd come down here, all he had felt was a desperate surety in his soul, an unbreakable resolution to fix the wrong that defined their separation. Now, the situation was different. Jake no longer felt empty, no longer felt dead inside. His excitement was welling up within him, causing him to fumble with his cell phone. He chose to ignore messages from Darrell. Nothing, not even business, would spoil today.

"Regina?' Jake spoke, "Would you...?" He intended to ask her if she was as ready as Sam was, having packed most of her clothes with Sue last night. Sue had insisted upon being involved in the process to the point that Sam abdicated control of packing to her aunt. Rather than being disappointed that they were going home, she was excited, as though she were going herself.

"I don't know if we can leave today, Jake." Sam cut in, entering the room, sadness clear on her face.

What did she mean? He should have waited, should not have packed. That was why he always waited. He waited, made sure of things, not wanting to raise his hopes. Impulses were not usually his style, and this was why. Sam, after a quick glance, answered his unspoken question.

Sam supplied, sitting on the bed, "He wants me to stop by, get checked out."

"Probably a good idea, Brat." Jake tried to reassure both of them, as his heart slowed. He watched as Sam shot him another look, reminding him that Regina did not understand the whole Brat thing. The woman could deal, he supposed. And anyway, a check-up before they headed out was a good idea. It certainly would help Sam to know how she was doing.

"Yeah." Sam pulled at a loose thread in her robe's pocket, "My appointment's in an hour. Can we be packed and ready? We'll just leave from there."

"You're sure?" Jake asked, flicking a look at Regina, who seemed to agree to leaving. There would be quite a bit to do.

"If we're going to go, let's go." Sam pulled hard, breaking of the thread with a sound snap, "No sense in putting things off."

Jake had never agreed with her more.

_Blue skies smilin' at me_

_Nothin' but blue skies do I see_

_Blue birds singin' a song_

_Nothin' but blue skies from now on_

_I never saw the sun shinin' so bright, never saw things goin' so right_

_Blue Skies, _Willie Nelson

Getting ready, Sam thought, had not been easy, but it had been fairly quick, rather like pulling off a band-aid. Once they'd made up their mind to leave directly from the hospital, things fell into place quickly. Sam tried not to think as Jake took out all of her equipment, quickly folding down the shower chair, adding the tool kit for the wheelchair to the trunk, and those sorts of things.

Regina helped her to pack her medications. The collection took up an entire pocket in her duffel. The nebulizer found a spot, wrapped in its case, on the floorboard in the back, tucked behind an extra pillow. Adding the orange bottles to her pack made her sad. Gone were the days where she could throw on her boots, toss some jeans in her pack, and head out. Now, she needed all of things to survive, to function. She felt trapped, and burdened.

Her luggage for a simple weekend at home contained so much she might need. She had everything from homemade hot packs to a huge bottle of aloe, because her skin was so sensitive right now, and the aloe helped, if only mentally. "Sam?" Jake loitered from the door, "You ready?"

"Yeah." She tore her gaze from the paintings, wondering if she'd ever think about picking up a brush without her head hurting, "Got all your stuff?" Sam took one last look around the living room, and adjusted the note to Sue on the end table. Her Aunt knew, of course, that she was leaving, but Sam didn't feel right about not leaving a note.

"Yeah." Jake stepped forward, holding her elbow as they moved towards the door, "Sue left us some sandwiches."

Sam returned his grimace, looking to her up to her left, ""Do we actually intend to eat them?"

"Brat, I'd sooner eat cardboard." Jake frowned sheepishly, "It might not kill us."

"I'll buy you Denny's." Sam made an offer, as they walked out the door. No matter what she'd promised Dad, she didn't want to come back here. Sue had been lovely to her, but San Francisco didn't exactly hold the best of memories. Everywhere she looked, she saw pain, and hurt.

"We'll see..." Jake hedged. Sam rolled her eyes, and broke the touch between them. With an inhalation, and a prayer, Sam pulled the door shut. It clicked firmly. She checked the knob, and they walked away without a backward glance. The girl that had suffered and cried, lost parts of herself and begged for death crossed a threshold, literally. There would be no turning back. If she came back, it would be with a fuller understanding of the woman she was. There was hope for the future, and the open road was before them.

_It sounds like 1963_  
_But for now it sounds like heaven_

_May the wind take your troubles away_  
_May the wind take your troubles away_  
_Both feet on the floor, two hands on the wheel_  
_May the wind take your troubles away_

_Windfall, _Son Volt

"You ready?" Jake straightened the rearview mirror and flipped his visor down. The sun was blinding. The hospital parking lot was busy, and he started the Scout, hoping he wouldn't hit the M3 that wanted their spot. The woman smiled in thanks, and Sam saw that Jake couldn't help but return her grin.

"Let's roll." Sam could not contain her excitement. She was going home. The doctor had not proved a worthy adversary. She was going home. Everything would be okay. She decided that for this trip, there would be nothing but the open road, and their joy. She forced everything else away, and turned on the radio. "Any requests, Regina?"

"Don't go out of your way for me." The woman replied, pulling out an MP3 player. "I've got a audiobook that Morgan Freeman narrates. I could listen to him read the phone book." Regina said, with much relish.

"Alright." Sam smiled affably. She was selfishly glad that, in some way, these coming moments would be hers and Jake's alone. A glance at him said that he agreed. Car rides were their time. You could, Sam thought, say anything, talk about anything, in these moments. Car rides were sometimes stressful, like the time somebody insisted that it was imperative he go to this new feed store, and they'd gotten lost as lost could be in the middle of nowhere. Sam knew the middle of nowhere was relative, but this place made Alkali look like the San Fernando Valley.

Another time, Dad shipped them off to check on a client as they readjusted to being home, and they'd gotten caught in a downpour, which required them to pull over, and wait the rain out. Sam's mind recalled the moment. Rain hit the ground, and hopped up, like bugs trying to escape a jar. They were on a deserted stretch of highway, with no one around for miles, and Sam had done one of the things that thrived within her soul as one of her best memories.

She had stood toe to toe with Jake Ely in a rain storm, and stolen his hat. They'd had to throw a tarp over the truck bed, knowing it was probably too late, as they hadn't been using the Scout. In the rain, they had ended up drenched and laughing over some joke she'd made. The sniffles they'd gotten from being soaked to the bone had been worth it, just to see the look on his face, as surprise from being hatless gave way to the humor Sam's joke brought forth. The radio had played Willie Nelson as they'd sat and waited out the storm, and Sam couldn't think of Willie Nelson without thinking about how wonderful that coup had felt, not to mention the peace that had fell over them, as they'd dried off in the cab, watching as the rain fell all around them.

"On the road again..." Sam began, memories fading, though the emotions stayed with her. She began flipping through the stations on the radio. "Just can't wait to be..." She didn't feel like pop music. The moment, she knew, this trip, would be something she would remember, and she wanted it to have a good soundtrack, at least in her head. Rock? Maybe. Nirvana? Not right now. She flipped that station. Rap? As if. Hmm. She pushed seek, again, and settled on finding some country music.

"Brat, if you're going to sing Willie Nelson, at least put him on." Jake shifted lanes, as they made their way towards the interstate.

"I'm in charge of the radio." Sam threaded her tongue between her teeth, still dissatisfied with the selections she'd come upon, "And I think what we need, Jake, is some strait up road music."

"Fine, but if you put Garth Brooks on repeat again, I'll toss the CD out the window." Jake threat was large, but she knew his words were hollow. This coming from the guy who'd braved Wal-Mart for his very own box set and then hoarded like it was the last one on the shelf, threatening Quinn if he so much as breathed in the glossy black box's direction.

"It's your CD." Sam relaxing against the seat, unruffled. "Remember?"

"Hm. Can I get over to the left?" Jake flipped on the turn signal, and the soft click-click was like a balm to her soul.

"Yeah, just wait for this green Ford to go." Sam smiled, peeking out the window.

They slid into their roles so easily that it stole Sam's breath. She was finally, finally, free. She was, as they moved down the interstate, unhampered by the injury. Sure, the cars going fast beside them made her a bit disoriented, but that didn't matter. She was actually helping Jake like she always had. He drove. She called the shots from the passenger seat. He grumbled about her music choices, but sang along, under his breath, if he forgot himself. That's how they were, how they had been, Sam knew, and she hoped this trip would be the same. The sun was bright on the dashboard, and the moments that sped by were absolutely perfect. She could not bring herself to analyze her joy, nor her desire to just drive, and drive, forever.

Driving down the road, it felt like nothing had changed. They could be going anywhere, doing anything. It felt like they were finally, finally, running away. The sun was bright above them, and the world felt right as the music played. Very little needed to be said, and very little was said of importance. They talked, as they always did, of music, and books, and people they knew, the moments feeling timeless. Jake muttered, in his easy going way, about out of state drivers, until Sam pointed out archly that they were the out of state drivers. Jake didn't contradict her, and she knew that he was so content because he did not play devil's advocate.

There were, in these moments, no drama, and no pain. Sam could pretend that they were on the way back from someplace fun, loaded down with stories to tell, and not salves and scars. As they drove, she felt like she was being released from jail, freed from a prison she'd built in her mind. All the hurt was behind her, and the demons she had yet to confront were far enough away that she did not allow herself to consider them.

_Ooo life's so sweet right here in the passenger seat_

_Ooo yeah life's so sweet_

_When I look to my left, see his suntanned hands_

_His muddy river hair and his thousand-acre plans_

_I'm all shook up like a quarter in a can_

_Ain't life sweet in the passenger seat? _

_Passenger Seat, _SHeDAISY

The asphalt sped by, and the Scout picked up the another station. Commercials seemed few and far between. The miles sped by and there was a part of her that never, never, wanted to get where they were going. She was too consumed by worries that she shoved away with the whole of her emotions. Still, questions popped up, from time to time, as she visualized what it would be like to be home. What if she couldn't do things, even things the evil Dr. Francis had allowed? Okay, so the man wasn't really evil, he just had given her strict instructions. Sam did not like being told what to do. What if she couldn't function? What if Kitty and Ace hated her? What if Gram was really bad off and Sam couldn't help her?

"Sam?" Jake interrupted his initial musings, as SHeDaisy played on the radio, proclaiming things Sam understood all too well.

Sam glanced over at him, the sun glinting off of him, "What?"

"I can hear you thinking." He kept the Scout in the lane, even as he spoke, easily.

She grinned, and noticed that she was drumming her fingers on the armrest of the door. He'd heard her fingers, she realized, and was not actually capable of reading her mind. She thanked God for small mercies. "Well, what else am I supposed to do?"

"Be." Jake declared, flipping the station for something he didn't consider to be so Nashville. He should just admit, Sam thought, that he was a hipster snob when it came to music. He never would, though. "Just be."

"Foolish you are, for Yoda you are not." Sam imitated a small green being, with a smile. He'd somehow lucked out and found some Seger, without ever moving his eyes from the road. Sam wondered how he always got so lucky, and she had to flip, and flip, until she found a song she could live with.

Jake grinned in reply, and Sam's stomach flipped. She chided herself, wishing like heck she could stop overreacting. Now, not only did his touch make her go haywire, the mere thought of it drummed up some kind of recall, and she could swear she felt him, even now. Sometimes, the thought calmed her, and other times her reaction was decidedly the opposite. Her brain was completely messed up, and she cursed the injury that caused this silliness, even as she relished the feelings it gave her. She wouldn't trade the feelings she felt for anything. She only wished she could convince herself it wasn't wrong to feel things she ought not from a simple touch.

_I've seen you smiling in the summer sun_

_I've seen your long hair flying when you run_

_I've rnade my mind up that it's meant to be_

_Someday lady you'll accomp'ny me_

_ You'll Accomp'ny Me, _Bob Seger

Jake made a concerted effort not to speed, not to rush this. Sam's expression was one he'd do anything to see on her face, and he wondered fleetingly what she was thinking about. She drifted asleep for a moment, and woke easily. An hour after that, Sam grew dissatisfied with the radio, "How did that flip go, by the way? I never asked."

Jake lowered his gaze, slightly, even as he kept his eyes on the road, "Darrell's calling the shots on that one." He wasn't about to tell her that he'd not done a lick of work since the accident. He'd tried, once, because work and being alone were the only ways he could cope. After several hours, Darrell found him, staring into space in some living room. Darrell, being Darrell, overreacted and freaked out that Jake had been alone with all sorts of tools at the work site. He wasn't suicidal, but Quinn had been with Darrell, as though they were looking for him. He remembered the look in his brother's eyes as conclusions had been drawn.

They were jumped to and were ones Jake refused to give any credit by even thinking about. Quinn had dragged him home, and pretended, as all brothers should, that Jake hadn't bitten his tongue to keep from crying. Quinn had been his shadow, now that he thought about it, for a lot of time after that day.

"You're letting Mr. Shiney Shoes run a flip?" Sam blinked incredulously. Jake smiled, knowing she was only teasing Darrell and his way of dressing when he did showings. The man, surprisingly, liked sweater vests.

"He's got to learn, Brat, somehow." Jake's replied, falling back on one truth to avoid telling another, "'Sides, it's a low level flip."

Her voice dropped to a whisper, in deference to a sleeping Regina, "Low level, like...?"

She wanted to hear him talk, Jake knew. Sometimes, she just did, though God only knew why. Flips put her a bit on edge, being that she thought it would change Darton County. He wasn't trying to do that, just get work someone else would get if they didn't. "Low level, like it's easy. Some clean paint, some carpets, some electrical. Then all the other stuff." Jake dismissed the process as easy with a shrug, "Three weeks of work, tops."

Jake had been involved with flipping houses for some time, but only recently went out on his own with Darrell. He'd gotten his start picking up part time work laying tile for a guy Grandfather knew. Darrell's late Grandfather's will had provided the start up funds for a tiny flip two summers ago. Some guy, in over his head, threw in the towel and passed it off to them quickly, eager to wash his hands and go back to Oregon.

Jake enjoyed flipping. It was a project with clear goals, a process of getting things done. They could get a place, strip it to the studs if they needed to, and put some sweat into it. That sweat meant money, weeks later. He liked working with Darrell, because he was his own boss. He didn't much like handling the sales, but Darrell had sat for his real estate license last year when he'd finished high school, and he handled that end of the deal. Jake did most everything else, and he liked it that way fine.

They were making a decent living, as infrequently as they flipped a place. His cut paid tuition, anyway. They saved money because Seth did their legal work, and his brothers often came out to work on a flip if they had time. Adam liked to stop by on the off seasons, saying that knocking out walls gave him something to do.

Sam made a sound, one he knew to take as support of his work, even as the idea of tearing up houses and selling them to people they often didn't know made her nervous. She just didn't like change, and Darrell had promised a million times that they would never, upon pain of death, remove character from a house. Jake still had no idea what character was, but Sam did, and she fought Darrell tooth and nail to keep an eye out for it. He generally listened to her advice when she spoke up.

_And there you were like a queen in your nightgown_

_Riding shotgun from town to town_

_Staking a claim on the world we found_

_And I'm singing to you, you're singing to me_

_You were out of the blue to a boy like me_

_And I'm looking for you in the silence that we share_

_You were pretty as can be, sitting in the front seat_

_Looking at me, telling me you love me_

_4th of July, Shooter Jennings_

This trip was something he'd been looking forward to, for weeks. He hadn't known it, of course, but the situation felt so right that even Jake couldn't deny that he'd been waiting for this moment. San Fran was not their home. The city was vibrant and compelling, but nothing compared to home. When they were home again, Jake decided, things would be okay. He would work out whatever he needed to, with Wyatt, and he'd start working for Heck. Life had changed, would continue to change, but the things that mattered had finally come back to them.

Apprehension bloomed under his joy, even as he pushed it away. Sam deserved one day, one day of pretending that this hadn't happened, that things were like any normal day that they'd driven someplace. She deserved to pretend that there was no Regina sound asleep in the backseat, no troubles they could never outrun. She would have that day, if he could give it to her.

She was in her element, her loose, shorn, waves flying in the breeze from the open window. The sun shone, and illuminated her like the brightest of frames. "Jake?" Sam broke the companionable silence between them.

"Hm?" Jake passed a mini-van, and slowed down again, to settle into the steadiness of the moment.

Sam turned up the radio, slightly, as a song she loved came on. "Just making sure you're still here." Sam replied, an oft repeated joke.

"Who'd be driving the car, then?" Jake answered, as was expected.

Everything about Sam was so out of the blue. She told him things with a forthright honesty that stole his breath. Jake didn't deserve the kind of friendship she gave him, nor the steady support her presence in his life provided. He'd made this trip so many times, recently, but today, it was completely different.

_Honey if I had to choose_

_I'd rather ride around with you_

_I don't care where this road goes_

_No, I don't wanna turn around_

_Let go of the wheel, feel the wind blow_

_Don't even think about slowin' down_

_I'd Rather Ride Around With You, R_eba McEntire

Sam enjoyed the ride, she said, simply because she could get lost in the motion and the music. Jake was glad when sleep overtook her, as he stole glances over at her. Her skin was pale, but she'd gained a little bit weight, and she seemed stronger and more herself with every day that passed. Not that her medical condition was free and clear, even though she hadn't filled him on what Dr. Francis had said. She was probably stewing over restrictions placed on her for the trip home, but she would fess up sooner or later. No, Jake knew things were not free and clear. She still needed to reconnect parts of her brain and body, as it were. She frequently mentioned that her senses had changed, that she was more easily aware of changes in her balance and the texture of touch and the taste of food.

Last night, they'd been sitting, talking over the trip home, trying to figure out the logistics. In a lull, Sam had said something that still knocked him through a loop, just thinking about it, "Jake?"

"Hm?" He paused, looking at her, tired but alight with a joy he had missed like air.

She'd began, carefully, "Want to know something?"

"Yeah." He nodded, wondering where this was headed. Of course he wanted to know. What was that, as a question? He had been hesitant, when he'd realized that she was testing the waters, preparing for his reaction.

"My senses have changed." She met his gaze steadily, even as he saw that her eyes were foggy with pain and pain medication, "When you touch me, the sensation lingers on my nerve endings. I felt your hand on my arm for a good hour after you'd left, when you went home. Strange, huh?"

"Maybe your memory has improved?" He ventured. He knew that some of it was the injury. Some of the sensory processing issues were normal, and so he'd tried to rationalize it. He'd failed horribly, some part of himself buoyant as his heart insisted, as it often did, that it was them who made the mundane special. If it was him, him that made her feel that way, feel like he did, when she touched him.

"Hm, perhaps." She nodded, and added, "Maybe it's my superpower."

"Maybe." He'd smiled, as she'd tossed the notebook on the floor, with an impulsive thud, and gone to sleep.

If pressed to admit it even to himself, he noted that they'd touched a lot, even before he understood what it meant to her. It was a way of saying "Hey, I'm here, and you're here, too." that transcended words. As much as she felt touch reaffirmed where she was in the world, spatially, he knew he needed it just as much. What if a time came that she wasn't there to hug? Having her words, knowing that it was powerful for her, too, gave him another excuse, another reason, to not deny his own need to touch, not when she needed it.

More than that, though, Jake knew that a messed up brain wasn't her superpower. It had been a joke, one to put off the swirl of emotions within them both as she'd said that, confessed God only knew what, to change his world yet again. She really, he thought, really had to stop changing his world. It cost him his equilibrium more than he cared to admit. He'd spent sixteen years with her, and still, she hit him over the head with secrets, things he couldn't understand about her. He could understand, more than anything, that that they needed each other, day in and day out. He hoped that would never change.

Knowing he needed her had been a hard pill to swallow, simply because he'd only realized it when she was gone. It hadn't hit him that he'd needed her, not really, until he'd been standing in his room after he'd left the hospital, with no one to talk to, and nothing of importance to say. College had been hard, but not like the weeks at home without her, not like the weeks knowing she was gone with no way to bring her back.

It was loneliness at school, he knew, because he'd tried like hell to ease it, on the track, and even at some parties. His teammates had insisted he go, but every time some girl came up to him, he excused himself. It felt wrong, to be getting to know someone Sam didn't know, hadn't met. It was wrong, to draw impressions of someone without the tilt of her head or the quirk of her eyebrow to balance what he gathered himself. It felt wrong, to know things about some stranger that he would never know about Sam. It felt impossible to go through a day without talking to her, or failing that, wondering why she hadn't called. After the accident, the loneliness had become despair, torment, a kind of torture only they could understand.

Once he'd figured out that he needed Sam, the absolute rightness of the fact slid into his mind like a puzzle piece, and he wondered why he'd questioned the fact, even as grief and fear swallowed him whole. They'd always needed each other.

He realized, then, what going home from school had meant. He'd come home to visit often, annoying his mother. She was glad to see him, of course, but she fussed over him making friends at school. Those people didn't matter. He had Darrell, and some buddies from high school, if push came to shove. He had his brothers, who were better friends than anyone else, because he didn't have to worry about social convention with them. They knew him, and for the most part, they still liked him. Even when they didn't like each other, there was a relationship there that time couldn't erase. His college buddies wouldn't matter in five years. His ranch would. His family would, and he hoped he could make his parents see why he was doing what he was doing. He was doing it for him.

Jake wasn't giving up on his goals, though he knew his parents would see taking online classes as a cop out. He knew that this weekend, he'd have to come clean. He needed to sit them all down, and calmly, coolly, explain what his choices were. They'd have to understand that as an adult, he was going to make choices for his family. He wasn't too worried about Sam's reaction, truth be told. If she'd had to make the call, he would back her up on it. Only time would tell, he supposed. He knew, though, that the accident had clarified many things, even as it had made many others too complicated to think about.

_She's an earthquake_

_And you're the fault line_

_So, when you feel the ground start movin' around_

_Hold on tight, you're in for a ride_

_She's so California, _Gary Allan

Sam looked down at her shirt, waking as the song changed. The song was one of Jake's favorites, but the shirt was new, and unusual. It was nothing like anything she'd ever bought, and felt very...California, for lack of a better word. The shirt was made of a silk blend, the sort that had a few buttons above a raised waist that created a vee-neck. Sue insisted the style created a long, lean torso. Sam brushed her fingers over the self-tie belt. Gosh, she thought, Jen is going to have a field day with this outfit. For years, they'd disparaged clothes like this, and now she was dressed like it. None of her own, comfortable clothes fit correctly.

Her jeans were cut very narrowly. Sue said the style was fashionable, even if Sam did think the narrow cut made her feet look huge in comparison. Sam had thought they looked okay, but now, she thought maybe they looked sort of strangely shaped. She looked down at the flats on the floorboard, ones she'd kicked off ages to prevent the low thrum of discomfort that she always from becoming pain.

"You cold?" Jake asked, seeing that she'd awoken, an expression of complete ease on his face.

"What?" Sam said, only to realize that she'd wrapped her arms around her waist. "Oh, er, yeah."

She fiddled around with her sweater, and pulled it over her arms, smoothing the light fabric over the scars that the needles had left in her arms. Understanding the reasons behind the smallest of actions, Jake sighed, "You look fine, Sam."

"I know." Sam did up a few buttons, fumbling with the small rounds and tiny holes, of the sweater, "You're sure Jen will be there?"

"You don't want her to be?" Jake asked, flicking a look at a sleeping Regina in the back seat. She had woken up a time or two, but as soon as she put her headphones on, she nodded off. It would have been funny if they both didn't know why she was there. If she had been Jen or Darrell snoring away in the back, there would have been jokes and teasing. Regina's presence, for as kind as she was, was hard to navigate.

"Of course I do!" Sam leaned forward hotly, "I'm just... I can't be the friend she needs, but I love her. But I'm not..." Jen deserved a good friend, one who could keep up with her, be what she needed. She loved Jen so much, and she knew Jen had gotten such a crap deal in this situation. At least she and Jake were together.

"Sam." Jake paused, hesitating, "Maybe..."

"Maybe what?" She ran a hand through her shorn hair, cutting him off when he floundered.

He started, anew, "I just..." Finally, he looked at her, and she understood the question that he couldn't put into words.

"Alright, look." Sam shifted her weight, "Our entire friendship was built around the horses, and now...that that idiot Francis won't clear me to do anything, what if..." Sam trailed off, flipping the station. She'd almost told him too much about the restrictions the doctor insisted upon.

Jake picked up on that slip, but obviously chose to stay on track, "Sam, you know that's not true. Jen is your friend." She thought it was funny, that Jake never called Jen her best friend, and wondered again why he didn't.

"I know." Sam admitted, because she did know. She knew Jen loved her as much as she was loved in return. She knew Jen would stand by her, as she always had. "It's irrational."

"And even if you can't ride right now, you can..." Jake tensed, a hopeful expression lighting his brown eyes, making the shade appear more colorful than normal. Sam swore, that even sitting side by side, she saw them glitter, and that made her scared. What if she couldn't keep up with him, once they were home either? Then, then, she wouldn't have him or Jen, and she needed them, but not, Sam thought, not at their expense. She couldn't bear if their friendships suffered, or if...

Sam cut him off, admitting the darkest of truths, "If I can't have it all, I don't want any of it, Jake. I'm not a masochist."

"What?" Jake nearly swerved, getting over, passing a pickup with Alberta plates.

Sam evaded, falling back on their history, hoping to make it easier on herself. "I'm a brat, remember?"

"Sam." Jake wouldn't have any of it, "Talk to me."

She turned the tables on him, hoping that she didn't have to admit this one thing, this one thing that would make him see her for the immature girl she really felt like. She hated, hated, hated when he thought she was a little girl. "You going to tell me, then, why you're hedging about that flip?"

"Sam, please." Jake pleaded, and in his voice, she heard the surety that whatever she said, would be okay. She could admit this, because he needed her to do it.

"I just...don't know if I could deal with being so close to having what I want, what I need, and not have it, you know? Like, if I can't have my life, all of it, everything, the way it used to be, normal, I'm not sure I want to even..." She sighed, "I don't know. Because if that's how I feel, why are we even doing this?" Sam's voice cracked "I'm not strong enough, Jake."

"Why do you feel this way?" Jake own voice wobbled, as though he were surprised by the admission. Sam couldn't deal with his clearly evident shock. She knew he knew how weak she was. He had held her hair back, when she'd cried until she threw up, when she'd trembled in his arms, and railed at the injustice of it all. Why was the fact that she could admit it a shock? Or was he shocked that she was so immature?

"What?" She said, startled, pain ripping through her. She could not handle the rejection she saw in his eyes. Was he rejecting her words...or her?

He clarified, slowly, "Why?"

"Because I can't bear to not be able to do what I do. To not be me. What...if I let them down, again? What if Dad says..." Sam rambled, relief flooding her. He must be doubting her words, and not her.

"Analysis Paralysis." Jake declared, knowingly.

"Hm?" Sam shifted slightly, having never heard the term.

Jake explained. "You're over analyzing, Sam, to the point that you don't want to do anything, because you assigning too high values of importance to things that aren't important."

"Are you going to tell me that riding my own horses aren't important?" Sam shot back, horrified. How could this man, this man who was born to be in the saddle, downplay his horses? Witch...was his world. Witch was loved, totally and completely, without blinders to her faults. Witch was understood by Jake, and she only hoped that she and Ace or she and Kitty had half the relationship Jake had with Witch.

"No. It is." Jake replied, and Sam was glad to know he hadn't had a lobotomy, "You'll get there. But Sam, what were you doing with Jen, while you rode?" Sam understood his words, even if she didn't share in his quietly expressed confidence.

"Oh." They had been sharing their time, talking in places they loved with people they loved. "I guess. But Jake, it's not so simple."

"It is, Sam. Define what is important, and go from there." He advised, trailing off, "Just...make it happen, somehow." Jake paused, "We'll make this work."

They sat in silence, for a time, as music swirled around them. Sam came to the conclusion that Jake was probably correct. It didn't mean that she had to like it, or that the coming days would be easy on her, on them, but he was right. They could do this. She could do this, for herself. She could define what was important, what mattered, and go from there. Surely it was not impossible to be her, somehow. She could still do some of her chores, no matter what that idiot doctor said. No riding. No lifting. No nothing. Extra rest. Keeping medication schedules. Blah Blah Blah. He'd almost refused to sign off on her going, but when she had told him that she was going no matter what he said, he'd lectured her heavily, and sent her on her way, his brows drawn together, as though he wasn't used to be defied or having his authority flouted.

Sam had told Jake the facts of what the man had said, but not the severity or the intensity with which he had said it. Sometimes, she thought, the fact that Dr. Francis insisted on seeing her on her own was a blessing in disguise. It meant that she could interpret his directives in her own way, without worrying about Jake's overprotective nature kicking in.

Still, doubts that had been shoved away early in the trip flared up. The logistics she didn't have figured out haunted her. It was the tiny things that made her question how she could do this. Stairs. Keeping up with her family. Proving to Daddy she could work when the doctor said to be careful. Pain that had building the back of her mind soon burst into the forefront of her conciseness. To keep from leaning forward, shifting around, something she knew was a sure tell, Sam spoke the first thing that came into her mind. "Are you going to tell me about that flip, Jake?"

"Later, Sam." Jake said, "You getting hungry? We could wake Regina, get off here, and get something?"

Gosh, yes. She could eat, then, and maybe they could get some IcyHot out of her bag. The heat hurt something fierce, but it helped, after a time, once she bore the discomfort of the heat long enough to let it. Sam gave one condition, "You have to let me pay."

"Why?" Jake said, seemingly baffled.

Sam could not deal with explanations. Pain made her short tempered. They'd had this argument a hundred times, and even though Jake wouldn't say, she knew money had something to do with his problems with Daddy. "Because!"

"Sam..." Jake said, as realization dawned, and compassion bloomed in his eyes. He knew she was in pain. He'd probably known since she started shifting around, as they'd talked about Jen. Jake set to getting off the interstate. Sam counted the seconds until he got where she knew he was going, as his other hand took hers for a fleeting second. Sam tried her hardest to focus on his touch.

Sam let their discussion go, having bigger fish to fry. "We're going to have to talk it out, sooner or later, you know that, right?"

"Okay." Jake said, finally on a regional road they knew, "But not today."

"You're avoiding a lot, you know." She waited in vain for him to reply, and muttered, "Including this conversation."

_Put a dollar's worth of gas in his pickup truck_

_We're goin' ninety miles an hour down a dead end road_

_What's the hurry, son, where you gonna go?_

_Small Town Saturday Night, _Hal Ketchum

Roper Cafe was a small, hole in the wall, place that he and Sam often stopped by on their way places. They were hours from home, but close enough that the town was not entirely a mystery to them. Jake came through here more often than Sam did, and they always stopped at Roper's. It was in just another little town that dotted the West, a nondescript place with people just watching the interstate pass them by, wondering if their corner of the world was really a part of something bigger.

"Sam?" Jake hooked a left, passing a tiny bookstore, and a Nazarene church, "Why don't you wake Regina?" He continued driving, pulling into the parking lot.

"I'm awake. I heard talk of food some miles back." Regina yawned, and put away her Mp3 player. "I could use me a good cup of coffee."

"So could I." Jake agreed. He flicked a glance over at Sam, who was clearly in pain. Her brows were drawn tight., and her green eyes were tinged in a way that made him feel like his soul was being stomped on. Regina got out of the Scout, probably to stretch her legs in an an new place.

Sam spoke, "I can't do this."

"I'll help you down." Jake offered, wishing her voice didn't sound so broken.

"No." Sam shook her head, rambling, "I can't go in there. See those people. I can't. I can't."

"You can't?" Jake turned quickly to look at her. Roper and Ruby, the couple that ran the place, were kind, good people. Jake understood, though, what she meant when he remembered that she knew that fact well. The inability wasn't physical. This was the first encounter Sam was having with someone who'd known her weeks ago, someone who didn't know what had happened since then. Jake wondered how he could help her. He hadn't thought about what this would be like, feel like, for a woman as proud as Sam.

"I..." Steel glinted in Sam's tone, in the tilt of her chin, "I have to do this. Practice round for Darton, right?"

"You don't have to do anything you don't want to, Sam, but..." Jake ran his fingers through his hair, agreeing with her reasoning, as much as it felt wrong to do so.

"I'm fine." Sam squared her shoulders, and inhaled, "Let's go."

"You sure?" Jake placed his hat back on his head.

"I said yes." Sam leaned forward, and pushed the door open, "Stop asking me."

Jake didn't want to stop asking her. He didn't want to have to hold in the questions that mattered. Sometimes, though, no questions were needed. He watched in silence, gathering answers that cut like a knife, as Sam tried to ease the pain in her aching body, holding on to the truck door to stretch. He watched as she sank into the chair, wincing as she resumed the position of sitting. He watched as she tossed a stick of IcyHot in Regina's bag, and as she insisted on pushing herself up the tiny ramp made of concrete.

The front left wheel caught on a lip of the pavement, from where the ramp and the sidewalk it led up to connected. Sam held it together, and tried again. Jake's fingers dug into his palms, only holding himself in check so as to honor Sam's wishes, no matter what he thought of them. Regina held the door, and gave them both sympathetic glances.

Just off of the beaten path

A little dot on the state road map

That's where I was born and where I'll die

_Down Home_, Alabama

Sam fell asleep, as soon as they were on the road again. Jake knew she'd deliberately knocked herself out with a low dose of pain medication. She wanted to be as well as possible when they got home. The dinner had gone fine, but Ruby had floundered until Sam had put her at ease. It wasn't the first time Ruby had seen an injured cowgirl, and it wouldn't be the last. Jake wished, however, that knowing the dangers that were inherent to their lifestyle made it easier to deal with, now that it had happened to them. Sam was Sam, and somehow, that erased any semblance of rationality he possessed, even if he could not acknowledge it.

Jake watched her sleep out of the corner of his eye, wishing it was because she felt at ease, and not because her body was worn down and trying to escape pain. He felt a bit better, though, when he heard her mutter his name in her sleep. At that, a shot of something primal raced through his blood. He ran his thumb over the back of her hand, the one wrapped around her seatbelt, and watched as it relaxed and moved to her side.

As they edged closer to home, Regina asked questions about their surroundings. She seemed enthralled by the cattle they passed, and asked about fencing lines more than once. She saw the sky widen, and gaped. He explained in some detail what ranching was, and the basic processes involved with keeping a place like Three Ponies going. Regina spent a bit of time talking over the differences between farming and ranching. She seemed amazed that they didn't grow cotton or peanuts. Jake smiled. Her Georgian roots were showing, as were her urban leanings.

As the sky opened above him, Jake felt a shift in him that had begun a Roper's. He felt a tension in the back of his neck melt away, a uneasiness drift away as they moved closer to home. For all the issues facing them, they were home, his hat was on his head, and Sam was by his side. Home was looking pretty good, Jake, thought, as he sped up. Soon the roads became ones he knew like the back of his hand, and Regina's interest was no longer half hidden.

He pointed out the roadside stands, points where one man's land became another's. Jake told her everything he could think of, joy thrumming within him, growing as Sam's sleep grew more natural. He realized that he was being given a gift. Finally, he was seeing home through the eyes of a stranger, the eyes of someone who didn't see all of the issues and problems, didn't see this place as more of the same old, same old. He was proud to acknowledge these places as their stomping grounds, far superior to San Francisco.

The road became a two lane road, and then, gravel, and finally, the path back towards the house became a dirt driveway. In front of them stood a house that for the first time in weeks, was the most welcome sight. in the world. Regina was silent, for the first time in awhile. Jake took the moment to pray. He thanked God for this moment, and begged Him for the strength to see this weekend through. He thanked God for the girl stirring next to him, and prayed that God would give them the solace only being home together could provide.

_Well, I just smile because they don't understand_  
_But if they ever saw a sunrise on a mountain mornin'_  
_Watched those cotton candy clouds roll by_  
_They'd know why I live beneath these Western Skies_  
_I got peace of mind and elbow room I love the smell of sage in bloom_  
_Catch a rainbow on my fishin' line_

_Western Skies, _Chris LeDoux

**Hey, everyone! Two updates in such a short time is usual for this story, I'm well aware. However, I wanted to get some of this out for you, as I'm really wanting to move forward. **

**Something special to note: Sam starts out really happy in the chapter, but gets more nervous as time goes on. Also, note that Jake arcs in the opposite way, starting with a lot of fear, and ending more idealistically. The point of this was to show you that when they peaked, were both happiest, is what made the trip so great, for all of its issues. It was just an important rhetorical choice, I think, one that shows a lot of insight into both of them, even as Jake served as the main speaker. This, too, was intentional, as a mirror for the trip he made without Sam.**

**Selecting the music for this chapter was hard. I finally cut out a bunch of songs (yes, I did!) and trusted my gut, but if you're interested in what didn't make the cut, there was a lot more Steve Earle and Reckless Kelly, specifically "Ragged as the Road." I also wanted to use "All the Roadrunning" but I couldn't make it fit. There were about 10 other songs, but I hope to add them in at another point. **

**Please Review. Thanks for all of the support.**

** Jumping Arabian: Thank you. So much. Sometimes, there's things I want to tell you, as readers, that I just have to show you, and hope that you feel what I'm hoping you do as I write this. ****It made my day to know that this rings true to you, and things are coming across as authentic. It's humbling to know that Run means so much to you. **


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